Kenpachi
by The Once and Future Prophet
Summary: When you're the only one left, does that make you Monster...or Salvation?
1. Indolence

**AN:** _I really needed to get this out before '_ Bleach _' actually ended, thus ruining any suspense for the final twist and giving this story a chance at credulity, no matter how thin that chance may be. Spoilers for the entire series as it has been released thus far. And I also didn't look up any proper Japanese names, just writing down the first thing that came to mind. (Plus, hint for upcoming story)_

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The rain pelted his body, but he no longer feels the cold as he once did. To any other, the concept of the chill running through his bones would be considered detrimental to their health, or that they should find warmth. To him, it was only one of the ways that he absently noted the passing of the days; otherwise he could go for weeks without really registering the rising and setting of the ethereal sun that illuminated all of the Seireitei, save for his shadowy corner.

He no longer knew nor cared how long he had wandered the wasteland that had once been his home in a nearly catatonic state. When his body required nourishment, he killed whatever animal was closest; sometimes he had the inclination to create a fire to sear the meat, but more often than not he consumed it raw without thought. When fatigue caught up to him, he simply laid down where he was until he no longer needed to, not even bothering to keep an eye out for potential threats: such concerns had been so long absent from him that he wasn't even sure he had ever had them to begin with.

His name had not been spoken in an age, and he was dressed only in rags; the filthy and shredded remnants of what had once been his badge of office. His eyes did not behold what was before them: they were always relaying what had occurred on the day that his world had ended in blue craft-fire and death, haunting his every breath like the closing howls of ravenous dogs, desiring naught but his flesh and blood.

A sword was the only remaining facet of that life he had lost. His constant companion and torturer, it was nearly as bedraggled and haggard as he was, being chipped and worn dull from lack of care. But it could still sing its song, and had on any occasion that required him to lift it in mindless defense. Hollows, thugs and feral beasts alike fell under the deceptive savagery of the empty blade, cut to ribbons with no more than a thought from the one who craved death but could never be taken.

He had tried, in the first few years. When the pain and loss and _desolation_ became too overwhelming, he had sought an end any way he could. But he had not been easily killable before the war, and he had only become vastly stronger just before it had all come crashing down around him, rendering him a true Death God. Neither steel nor fang could pierce his flesh, stone could no longer break his bones, water could never again steal his breath and fill his lungs, hunger withered him but failed to claim him and thirst merely parched him without turning his insides to dust.

Taking his sword to himself had never been an option as the blade, even without the spirit that had dwelt within, could never harm him, being born of him and still an extension of his soul.

It was for this reason that he detested it.

When his mind emerged from the mire of despair and self-loathing, every so often, he would look at the unnaturally long weapon, jagged from countless battles as well as the condition of his spirit, and recall some of the fights that he had been part of, the monumental conflicts of strength and skill that he had more often initiated than been invited to, and he could feel some flicker of the life he had felt in those moments of ecstasy, if even for a few fleeting seconds.

It was for this reason that he cherished it.

But still, the voice had never again spoken to him, long since dead when it should have been him to perish in the inferno of Quincy trickery. This broken man, once known as the fiercest and strongest of swordsmen, the equally idolized and demonized Kenpachi of Zaraki was alone with his sorrow, doomed to walk without seeing through the scorched earth of Armageddon.

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The land formerly housing the entirety of the Thirteen Court Guard Squads and several of the outlying districts of the Rukongai was not even and smooth: it had been blasted into oblivion, leaving fissures and canyons for miles around, crooked wastes of uprooted rocks, scorched desserts of white sand and cavernous maws in the ground that held no visible bottom. It was, without needing a second thought, a bitter hell where only the damned would remain.

It was perfect for Zaraki.

He never remained in one place, always walking, never trying to venture beyond the desolate barrier of the devastated kingdom for longer than it took to find food. He was as bound to this place as the smell of charred rock and burnt earth; the only things that had remained constant in the intervening years.

He never thought back to That Day, when the Quincy and Soul Reapers had escalated their conflict to the very seat of Heaven itself and dethroned the one who had held their realm together by existence alone. Yhwach had somehow succeeded in his lunatic's plan of becoming the New God. The Captain Commander had been slain at the height of his power and succeeded by the man he had considered a son but was not ready for command. Ichigo had lost his Zanpakuto and then reclaimed it in characteristically impossible fashion. Aizen had been brought out as some kind of weapon guaranteed to cause just as much death to those who aimed him as was aimed at. Yachiru Unohana, the First Kenpachi, had finally relinquished her hold of that title to Zaraki in a manner that was befittingly beautiful and ruthless, raising him back to his unprecedented power from years long past.

And just when it seemed like they were all going to partake in one last, indescribable battle - Soul Reapers, Hollows, Fullbringers and Quincy allied against the All Seeing and his most elite _Shuttztaffel_ \- with everything on the line for every realm and all who lived and died in them, the final move was made without the consent of the players.

Uryu Ishida. It had been that pretentious and severe boy that had managed to end a war that had lasted for centuries with only patience and a straight face, for the sake of avenging the death of his mother and to prevent any more such cases of suffering. He, his frigid father and Hashwalth had devised a plan without ever speaking a word to each other, one that would clear the board entirely rather than wipe away only one side: during the entirety of the conflict between age old enemies, five markers had been placed in exact locations around the entire realm, creating a massive pentagonal star.

With so many losing their lives and so many high-level battles occurring, reishei was absolutely abundant in the Soul Kingdom, slowly but surely fueling the Quincy artifacts well beyond their intended limit and into the scope of pure beacons of power that rent the air and space around them, rendering them clouded from Yhwach's eyes. And then the Soul King was murdered and usurped, rendering the Royal Palace a connected and physical part of the Seireitei, thus a viable target.

All that was left was to wait until the setting of the sun, when Hashwalth would resume his role as King and Yhwach would supposedly be rendered vegetative, regaining his spent strength. But the font of the Quincy had never planned to return to his slumber: he had every intention of saddling the similarly powered Hashwalth with his mortality and truly rising above the perceptions of all lesser beings and ascending to the unknown plane. He would be a God in purpose as well as name.

And when the moment came, after both Haswalth and Ishida had attacked their closest friends in order to stall, the transition occurred despite Ichigo's and everyone else's intervention. But in that span of a few heartbeats wherein anything was possible, Uryu Ishida finally sprung his trap, with he and his father working in tandem on opposite sides of the ritual.

The young Quincy had weighed the lives of all within the blast radius of the overwhelmingly powerful attack against all of those who would suffer and perish if Juha Bach transcended reality, and he had made the hardest decision anyone could ever have made: to sacrifice everyone he had ever cared and countless innocents for in the eradication of the ultimate threat.

The explosion had been beyond description, outshining the sun and roaring so loud as to deafen and those leagues away. Within the pentagram, there was only destruction. From the lowliest rukon dweller to the highest Captain, all burned. Yhwach, caught at his most vulnerable, was not sparred from this fate by the strength he had accrued and stolen; he burned, and was but ash and dust. Yamamoto had finally been redeemed for his failure a millennia past by one he had never thought consequential to the grand scheme.

And yet, Kenpachi survived where all else perished.

He had been saved from that blissful nothingness by the being he had both neglected and nurtured: the spirit of his Zanpakuto, Nozarashi, long manifested as his adopted daughter, Yachiru Kusajishi.

It had never been heard of beyond one notable member of the Kuchiki clan- a Zanpakuto spirit appearing to everyone, not just its partner. Many believed it to be a myth dreamt up by the foolish and insane, nothing more than a fantasy academy students would pass around at the back of class rooms.

But Kenpachi Zaraki had always been an exceptional person in one way or another all his life.

When he had nothing, not a name, home, destination, goal or hope, when he had even been cut off from the bulk of his devastating power, he had been found by a child, no larger than one of his long-fingered hands. Pink haired and wide-eyed, she had laid a hand on the blood drenched blade of his and had been delighted. He had found someone who would not forsake him for his being a monster. He named her after the only woman he would ever love and hated with all his dark heart. She was his sole light.

From that very moment, she had passively guided him. It was to her that Ikkaku Madarame had been drawn to, from her that the idea to join the Gotei 13 had stemmed, around her that others were influenced in how they saw him, looking beyond the despicable exterior and to the man beneath the animal, even going so far as to deliberately lead him away from fights and ween him from his thirst for death. She had been the focal point on which his life had at last taken meaning. Though he could not speak to his blade, since unconsciously shutting away that section of his power from himself, the spirit itself found new meaning as his conscience and guardian.

And then she had been allowed back home, as Unohana willingly died by his hand and his self-made blocks evaporated, rendering blade and wielder whole once again. The little girl he had known died that day, having fulfilled her purpose and returning to her rightful place. He was stronger than he ever imagined he could be, and his potential for growth was now practically unlimited, no longer bound by his shackled power.

When Ishida initiated that final, fatal technique to wipe the slate clean, Kenpachi would just as assuredly have been disintegrated as all others within the blue-white dome of destruction; not even Aizen would escape alive. Power was meaningless when confronted with a force that was powered by the very world around you and charged beyond capacity.

But what could counter the Quincy craft, something far less tangible than strength, was the love that Nozarashi had for him. Nearly all Zanpakuto exist in cooperative, if not harmonious, partnerships with their wielders, forming bonds closer than family. But they are all extensions of a Shinigami's soul, and this is to be expected from one who has brought balance and resolution to their soul. What Nozarashi felt toward Kenpachi was not just as a blade towards its wielder, but as a friend and as a daughter, growing beyond Zanpakuto spirit and cultivating her own aspect of a soul from all she had seen and done while separated from Zaraki.

She did not want him to die, and she would not let him.

Kenpachi awoke a week after, undamaged, alone, holding a sword that no longer held a spark of life within it. Nozarashi had shielded him at the cost of herself, a sacrifice that should have been impossible and he wished dearly had been.

While he survived what had killed practically every single powerful being alive or dead, he was no longer alive, not inside. His desolate life was a match for the barren and decrepit land he now traversed in a stupor of guilt and loss. Kenpachi was now a lost soul without cause or purpose, as he had been years before in his darkest days.

The last Soul Reaper walked.

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They found him sitting on a boulder, back hunched and sword gripped only loosely in his hand, eyes inattentive. The spirit pressure coming off of him wavered in extremes- from horrifyingly huge to practically nothing; they still barely felt any resistance as they stood cautiously nearly twenty meters away.

Not even his once legendary 'killing intent' was present to ward them off.

They observe him for over an hour in silence, not sure what to make of this shell of a man they had been directed to. Their expectations were so very unmatched by the reality that they even doubted he was the same person as they had heard stories of.

Kenpachi moved not an inch, breathing slowly with his vacant eyes leveled towards the horizon.

When it seemed that no more could be gleaned from observation alone, one of the two, the spikey haired woman with a fire in her eyes, determinedly set off towards him. A frantic hand landed on her arm to stop her, succeeding in that regard, but she swung about to glare at her partner fiercely, one hand threateningly grasping the hilt of the katana tucked into the belt of her coat.

"What are you thinking?" He hissed, not at all concerned by her hostile move; she had tried it on him far too many times for it to be effective now. "That is not a sane person over there. You heard what they said about him now!" His voice never rose in volume, only pitch.

"We've talked about this," she snaps right back, slightly louder. "We don't have any other choice and you know it. It's either him or nobody, and that seems like a pretty clear choice, yeah?"

He glanced over her shoulder at the unmoving bulk that they are debating over, back to them and stationary as the stone beneath him.

"I can't let you get yourself killed after everything we've been through," he growled with uncharacteristic venom, startling her slightly. She has only seen this side of him several times in the past, and only after their deaths and subsequent transference to the Soul Society. He may act like a coward most of the time, but that was a guise for the sake of normalcy: most of the fear had been burned out of him years ago, alongside his youthful optimism.

"I told you already that I wouldn't throw my life or yours into danger without a good reason, and I can't think of a better reason than what we came here for," she placates, voice much less hostile but still firm. "You've trusted me this far, what's a few more minutes?"

He exhales forcibly, already knowing he's lost this bout. Nervously tapping the pommel of his own katana, he nods at her and falls into step just behind her as they traversed the ragged terrain to their goal. They stop again several paces away, the caution born from surviving dozens of Hollow attacks serving to ensure their safety in this situation as in all others.

"Kenpachi Zaraki?" She asks loud enough for her voice to carry over to him on the dead wind, words steady despite her twitching nerves.

Kenpachi doesn't move a muscle. Practically a rock himself.

"Kenpachi Zaraki?" She tries again, a hint of her temper coloring her inquiry. "We've been looking for you for months."

Still he did not move, and the male traveler gets the suspicion that the towering man had died on that boulder some time ago and his body was left in this position. It wouldn't surprise him.

Annoyed, the woman threw her caution to the wind and stomped around to stand in front of the insensate warrior, much to the panicked distress of her friend. She glared into the eyes of the person she had been told was the last of an extinct order. She saw only a broken man.

"…Kenpachi?" She's less sure now, wondering if he truly is beyond hearing her words. But if he is, then she only has to speak in a language he's sure to understand.

Taking a step back, she looked up and beckoned for her companion to get behind her in preparation, drawing her katana. Naturally, the worrywart makes a face of alarm and moves to stop her, but she doesn't give him the opportunity, swinging down with a speedy one-handed strike, straight towards Zaraki's-

TSH!

She gaped as her sword bounced away from where it collided with Kenpachi's, having seemingly been lifted to intercept instantly. A retaliatory slash almost guts her in her surprise, but the intervening wooden sheath of her friend flies up from below and swats the long blade up into an angle so it only just misses taking her life.

Kenpachi is obviously not even trying, barely maintaining his grip on his sword.

She steps forward and jams the flat of her blade against the back of his, pushing it so his arm is left extended awkwardly. If what she has heard of the Kenpachi is true, then she won't be able to hold him here for any length of time, and wouldn't even have been able accomplish even this much if he had been even partway serious. She can't try and fight him, she needs to talk dammit!

"Just tell me: are you the Kenpachi Zaraki that Kurumadani told us about? The one who fought Ichigo?"

There, a spark behind his glassy eyes! She needed to dig him out of his complete withdrawal, and she needed the right incentive to do it with.

"Ichigo Kurosaki," she affirms, keeping eye contact. "He was our friend years ago, before he and the others disappeared." His eyes shifted as life visibly returned into his movements, followed by a slow blink. The hand holding his sword slowly goes lax, allowing the long blade to scrape into the dirt. Chapped lips crack apart, trembling as he struggles past the atrophy of disuse.

"I…Ichi…go?" His voice is like grinding rock, unheard by his own ears for as long as his fogged mind can recall. Sunken black eyes rove upwards to meet hers, the first time in decades that he's done so.

She grins triumphantly and removes her sword from where it kept his at hopefully safe distance, but she doesn't sheathe it. She only stands a slightly taller than Kenpachi's head, despite him sitting, so she saw no need to sit down herself, opting rather to take a step back. She has no idea that he could have easily cut her down in the initial meeting of blades, and no amount of distance could make her safe when she had drawn his full attention. Her friend waited anxiously to the side, not quite apart and not quite among them, ready to step in if required. He doesn't aim to fail her now.

"So you are Kenpachi," she nods to herself as well as him in confirmation, seeming to finally be able to place the legends she's heard to the pale shadow in front of her. "My name is Tatsuki Arisawa, and this is Keigo Asano. Forty years ago, we were just spiritually aware enough to be able to see Hollows and Soul Reapers, so we knew that Ichigo was one of you and had a responsibility far larger than what someone his age should ever be forced to shoulder."

The former martial arts champion and her less than academic companion had been dead for half that time, having been killed by the same building collapse that had claimed the third member of their group, Mizuiro during a fight between a rampaging Hollow and Karakura Town's sole defender, Zennosuke Kurumadani, otherwise known as 'Afro Dude' (Keigo had unfortunately never heard of _Afro Samurai_ before he had made that nickname, so it was the best he had gotten).

The Soul Reaper had been trapped in the World of the Living during the Thousand Year Blood War, and as such hadn't been killed with everyone else. With no other choice, he had kept at his duty to usher the souls of the departed into the next world and defend pluses from Hollows. He had tried repeatedly to open a Senkaimon to his home, but the dimensional gate wouldn't appear, no matter how much effort he put into it, leaving him stranded.

The three departed humans had opted to stick around for a bit after their demises, with nothing holding them to one place, and decided to quiz the tragically morose Zennosuke on the land that he would soon send them to by way of the konso. From him, they had learned all that they could of the world he had left, and for all he knew it was all still the same after the years of his exile.

"Why…" Kenpachi rasps, narrowing his eyes at her, scar crinkling across the left side of his long face. His voice gives out, and he doesn't try to continue, settling for fixing them with accusatory looks. Tatsuki glances upwards, and then at Keigo; the lanky man nodding shortly to her unasked question.

"We wandered through the outlying lands for years, trying to piece together what happened to our friends. There were conflicting stories, complete lies, horrible embellishments and biased opinion, but we eventually puzzled out the general details about the Quincy and the war. We then knew that Ichigo, Orihime, Chad and all the others were gone forever."

The lump in her throat as she said this nearly made her choke over the words, but she had years of practice to file away the pain still felt at the loss. Right now, she needed to focus on the path ahead of her.

"We eventually decided that, since we were spiritually aware and had a degree of reitsu, we should try and become strong enough to fight Hollows." Another lance of pain shoots through her at what she must say next, and the look on Keigo's face is enough to tell her that he knows as well, all too well. "We overestimated ourselves. We…lost our friend."

Mizuiro had been so courageous, leaping to the defense of the elderly couple and right in the path of an eight limbed Hollow, katana held in shaking hands but face set in stone. He had fought with all his might, but such a creature had merely toyed with him, allowing him to exhaust himself before moving in for the kill. Keigo had been closer than Tatsuki, who had been fending of several dog sized Hollows coming from the woods, and he had had his sword in hand.

But he had hesitated, petrified. Mizuiro had been slain by the beast, dying the final time in his cycle.

The guilt from that failure had nearly pushed the former jokester over the brink into despair, leaving him a mental wreck. But Tatsuki had been there, just _there_ , and this proved to be what he needed: to have something to focus on. He had vowed by the blood in his veins that he would never fail his only remaining friend in the world, giving himself to the executioner's blade before letting her down again. The light-hearted man had vanished, replaced by someone willing to take the risks and endure the pain, if only to enforce his vow.

"It was a harsh wake up call, but one we took to heart. We weren't anywhere near ready to defend others when we ourselves couldn't even handle the threats we aimed to fight. What we needed was somebody stronger and more used to fighting to guide us, teach us. We asked around as much as we could, but nobody came close to what we required.

"Then word began to surface of a madman, haunting the scar that was the Seireitei, cutting down any who tried to attack him without hesitation of effort. Then, somebody said that the last Kenpachi had managed to come back from death itself and continued to slaughter, if only as a wraith of his former self. So we followed the trail, and here we are."

Tatsuki stopped talking, mouth uncomfortably dry, but she didn't move to drink from her water gourd. She had laid down their story, as politely as she could make herself, and now the silence was set back into place. Keigo had crossed one his left arm across his chest, hand tucked under the armpit of his sword arm, uneasy.

Kenpachi didn't look at them. His mind was starting to work through the webs of time, actually functioning beyond instinct with rusty progression. She said forty years…hasn't it been centuries? The short time span almost seems insulting. 'Asano'? Hadn't Ikkaku-

He slides his flat stare slowly up to the sky, trying to find reason in the overcast clouds. He never bought into that hokey mysticism crap before, did he? Probably no reason not to start now anyway. Why were they here? Why was he here? Couldn't he finally die now?

"Scram." He stands up from his rock, body now towering over the other two souls. He flipped his hold on his katana, using it as an impromptu walking stick as he ambled away, willing his mind to return to the merciful blankness it had been for so long.

Five and a half feet of indignation jumped into his path.

"That's it? You're just going to walk away? I heard that you were barely more than a savage, even before the war, but this is unbelievable!" Tatsuki had dropped her cautious veneer of civility and her temper had burnt through, something that had gotten her into as much trouble as it had gotten her out of it. "Soul Reapers are supposed to maintain order and peace, not sulk around and wish everything was all better!"

Her words were dangerous, and a Kenpachi of a few years ago would gladly have chopped her arms off for such a slight. Now, he barely glanced at her before stepping around her and continuing his trudging path.

"Don't walk away from me, from us! Not after everything we've been through and lost to get here and find YOU!" She can feel the desperation sinking its claws into her and attempting to turn her shouts into sobs, but she pushes it back, willing anger to fuel her mind as she runs ahead of Kenpachi once more, pointing the end of her generic sword at his already scarred chest. "I won't let you. I have strength, and I have just enough crazy to make you train us."

Keigo had followed close behind them, and now stood a few feet away from Zaraki, hand on his partially drawn sword. He's sweating, both out of fear and anxiety; Tatsuki was always flying off the handle when it would do her no good, and often more harm.

Kenpachi stopped walking, shoulders slumped. Beady black eyes glanced down at the weapon directed towards his torso. Without haste, he reached up with his free hand and snapped the metal between his thumb and forefinger. Arisawa gaped in either horror or astonishment, he couldn't really tell.

He wasn't angry with the two. Anger just had no place left to fill beside the overwhelming desolation he was constantly beleaguered by. They were just wide eyed youngsters in a world that would soon crush their optimism rather than nurture it. He was neither the one to teach them nor show them how the real world worked. He wanted to be alone.

"Leave," he grunts before resuming his endless pilgrimage.

Keigo moves to stand next to his friend, watching the back of the departing berserker.

"Could have gone better," he mused aloud. When Tatsuki glared at him sidelong, he merely shrugged his apparent disregard.

"If he thinks we're going to give up trying to be stronger, then he has no idea who he's dealing with."

"What, you're actually going to try again? I think that was a pretty definite 'no' right there and I don't want to anger the guy who just broke a piece of metal like it was a candy cane."

"No," Tatsuki murmured, her voice suddenly much quieter, making him look at her in surprise. "He didn't have anything but sadness in his eyes. He won't kill us out of anger."

"And you still want to keep talking to him? You're nuts."

She shrugged. "Maybe. Are you coming?"

"Of course," Keigo sighed, already walking beside her as they pursued one of the strongest fighters to ever exist. "I'm never going to let you fight alone again."

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Three weeks later, and they have been pulling in the same luck in trying to coerce Kenpachi into training them. Following him is a chore in and of itself; he can and will walk for days on end without showing any signs of slowing, while tatsuki and Keigo have to contend with normal levels of endurance and stamina. If they lay down camp to rest for the night, chances are pretty good that the goliath of a man would be long gone.

Fortunately, it was comparatively easy to track his movements. He was a heavy person despite his deceptively slender frame underneath his clothes, and he left very visible tracks in the ground. When they were going over terrain that wasn't as forthwith in aiding their novice survivalist skills, such as hard rock, then they had only to travel in the same direction as him until they found a trace they could follow until they caught up again, often at the end of the day and restarting the whole cycle over again.

Tatsuki was persistent in her attempts to win the giant over. She would walk in front, abreast and behind him, talking at him and trying any tactic she could think of to get him more responsive. For his end of these exchanges, Zaraki would either completely ignore her, or utter a one word refusal in his slowly returning rumble. Keigo would always remain on watch.

Tonight happened to be one of the few times that the man finally stopped to sleep for the night, lowering himself ungracefully onto an outcropping of rock that overshadowed a miniscule canyon. His two shadows made their own resting places a decent distance away; their careful precautions had kept them alive this far, and they weren't going to stop now.

Their legs were sore and their bodies ached, but they still managed to find a crease in the rock that would fit both of them shoulder to shoulder, if squeezed. Keigo always slept with his katana on his chest while Tatsuki had a slightly less defensive habit of tucking hers under one arm, the cross guard and hilt poking up over her shoulder at an angle (they had had a single spare with them, and even though it was a bit longer than the one she had trained herself with, she managed alright).

Neither spoke. The silence was relaxing. And safe.

For three hours they fitfully dozed, slipping to and from the realm of sleep with cruel regularity; it had been quite a while since both of them had had a full nights. Keigo especially was haunted by the specters of his past; all of he failures that had never truly left him, nor would he have let them. He needed that pain, that guilt, to remind him every moment of every day that he could never again afford to slack off, or joke around when lives may very well be on the line. Asano would be a name he could live with without shame.

…

…

…

…

There was something out there.

Not making a noise, Keigo reached over his chest and shook Tatsuki's shoulder, rousing her immediately. She blinked repeated;y, eyes trying to adjust to the cloudy night sky, and shifted her katana back down her body so as the hilt was safely in her grasp, sliding a scant inch free in preparation. They jointly rolled to their shoulders, back to back, and brought their legs beneath them into mirrored crouches. They had been practicing and using these defensive methods for so long now that they really were habit, and the more natural reaction than hesitation.

The martial artist went first, vaulting the shallow lip of their shelter and sprinted several feet away, practically crawling. Her sword remained sheathed in the event that any reflection off of it could give her away, but she was more than ready to draw it with a jerk of her wrist and an opening slash that had managed to fell a good number of their opponents in the past. Her dark eyes darted about, searching for danger.

Keigo was only a second behind her, going in the other direction to create enough distance between them that any attack would have to be directed at one or the other, or divided if there were multiple attackers, but not so far that they couldn't leap back to the others aid. He had his thumb coked directly beneath the crossguard of his sword, anticipating the need to pop it out in a move that was even faster than tatsuki's, thanks to countless hours of training. His earthen eyes penetrated the long shadows that stained the land around them, seeking the hidden threats.

Several tense moments later, and they were still standing there, trying to sense a first move for them to defend or counter against. But nothing moved against them. Nothing attacked with mindless abandon or cruel cunning. They were alone in this miserable and inhospitable land.

The Arisawa valkyrie looked over her shoulder, catching Keigo's eye. She made a small movement with her head, as if to ask ' _well?,'_ in a snappish way. He shrugged, showing confusion rather than dismissal. He knew he had felt something out here, and even though his sensing ability really wasn't adequate, it was still there, and it had saved his hide on more than one-

The flat, inky shadow behind Tatsuki reared up away from the ground without any sound at all and revealed the chalky, leering mask of a Hollow.

Keigo's wordless exclamation was enough for Tatsuki to dive to her left, but it was entirely in vain: all the other shadows that had surrounded their hidey hole rose and surrounded them in a joined, solid wall of velvety darkness, a single Hollow with a body like a massive sheet.

Tatsuki lunged, drawing her sword and plunging it into the skin of the soul eater – only for it to stretch with the blade like some kind of elastic or rubber, not even leaving a mark. Shocked, she nevertheless tried to cut the monster several more times, all with the same lack of progress as the last. Keigo too was trying his hardest to shear through the resilient Hollow, but he seemed only to be swimming against the raging current.

The Hollow wasn't bothered in the least by the attacks being made on it; only loosing a croak of laughter and tightening the circle around them, skowly constricting them until there wasn't any more room. See what was happening Keigo made his decision in an instant.

"Tatsuki!" She turned at her name, seeing him crouched down and slumped forward – a maneuver that they hadn't actually practiced much at all but she took the cue easily. Jumping over the hole they had been sleeping in and running across the space between them, the grown athlete planted one foot on his upper back, mid stride, in the same moment he surged back to his full height. That boost plus her leap launched her in the air, high enough to clear the Hollow trapper and hopefully find some way to save her friend before he was devoured.

But that hope was for nothing, as a previously unseen tentacle sprouted from the otherwise flat creature and ensnared her around the waist, pulling her back into the ring. Keigo shouted and tried to hack off the offending extremity, but it proved just as pliable as the rest of it and went unharmed. An identical tentacle sprouted and grabbed him up as well, two more joining them to pin their arms and halt any further attempts to attack.

The two souls thrashed and struggled for all they were worth, but the oddly frictionless skin of the Hollow had them in a deathgrip, and there was no escaping it now. They were brought before the mask of the entity, now seemingly larger than it had before, dwarfing them entirely.

" _ **Well, well, well. I seem to have found myself the first decent supper I've had in ages! You couldn't possibly know how rare it is to find any of you worms with spirit levels even worth consideration. You may have been hiding under that disrupting presence, but I found you and now I'm going to eat you!**_ " it rumbled with a voice made for of echoes than of actual sound. It laughed again, a hideous noise, and lifted both of the former humans up to its great maw, stretched wide to accommodate them in their entirety.

For the briefest of moments, a bright white line seemed to superimpose itself over the Hollow, going up and between the empty eye holes of the mask. It froze, as did they.

And then the Hollow split in half, already dissolving into loose reishei. Tatsuki and Keigo landed hard on their sides, but they were back on their feet in time to witness the last of the monster disappear. Standing right behind it, looking as blank as ever, was Kenpachi Zaraki, sword held loose in hand as he studied them.

After a stunned moment, Tatsuki hastily sheathed her sword and took a step towards the towering former Captain, but that was when he turned on his heel and strode back towards his own resting spot. Without turning his head, he called back to them, "Always go for the mask; it's what holds a Hollow together."

It was the first time he had ever spoken more than one word at a time.

Keigo tapped the flat of his blade against his leg and sandal thoughtfully. "I may be delirious from adrenaline, but-"

"The Kenpachi just taught us our first lesson," tatsuki finished, grinning widely for the first time in years.

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"Stance's too narrow," Kenpachi grunted, walking around Keigo as the latter relentlessly swung his katana through the air. Without even staying to see if his instruction was followed, Kenpachi strode over to where Tatsuki was running through one of the very few katas that he had bothered to memorize, drumming the structured movements into her head with each retry. "Now backwards."

She glared at him, but began to reverse the entire sequence, albeit much slower than normal. Zaraki squinted at her, spotting all of the flaws that became glaringly apparent when she couldn't really on muscle memory to fill in the gaps.

"If you need to take it slow, then go slow," he barked, startling her somewhat and angering her as well. "You obviously can't manage it at normal pace so you might as well do it at the only speed you seem capable of."

Tatsuki positively snarled at that, and just to defy him, she immediately began moving faster and faster, painfully sloppy for the first half dozen runs, but slowly starting to smooth it out after that, remembering all of the steps and stances that went into it and placing them in the right order.

"Forwards." She didn't waste the air to further show her resentment for his teachings, only doing as he said, trying really hard to show him that she was way better than he was going to admit. After only a week with the subdued berserker as their "teacher", she was willing to see that, just maybe, she hadn't really done her research extensively enough in this case. Kenpachi was a known lunatic before the war, and she had actually _wanted_ to find him! "Backwards."

Keigo, still practicing his kendo, glanced over and was rather amazed to see that Tatsuki had riled herself up enough that she was angry enough to excel: back and forth, she flew through the kata in quick succession, any mistake made on one run was absent in all the ones after that.

Standing behind her, Kenpachi was nodding slowly, fingers playing over the cloth wrapped hilt of his vacant sword.

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"-was Kaname Tousen. He was blind."

"Blind?" Keigo sputtered around the mouthful of charred rabbit he had been chewing on. His tongue was slightly burnt.

"Yeah blind, didn't ya hear me?" Kenpachi snapped, brandishing his own skewered mammal like a threat of doom. "He relied on sensing reiatsu at such a pain in the ass level that he probably could even tell what someone looked like."

"Sounds like 'The Matrix'," Tatsuki muttered, quietly enough that only Keigo heard her. He shrugged indifferently but kept his peace.

"Well, then he was replaced by the guy he had replaced, Kensei...Muguruma, yeah that was it, who seemed like a bit of a dick. Still, he had a better Bankai than Tousen did in any case." Remembering the disappointment that had been, Zaraki bit off another mouthful and chewed in retrospective indignation. First Bankai he had ever fought in a life or death fight, and it was that? Shit.

"And the Lieutenant?" Keigo prompted, eyebrow raised at the scrunched face the other man was making right then.

"Hm. Shuhei Hisagi. Good shikai. Had the numbers '69' tattooed on his face."

"..."

"...what?"

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Their blades clashed for only a second, the resounding ring generated from the contact hadn't even fully gone away when they pulled away. Tatsuki twisted around to slice at Keigo's legs, barely avoided by a jump back. Not waiting for him to retake the offensive, the firecracker of Karakura took a step forward and kicked all the way up at his nose. Predictably, he craned his neck back to avoid the blow, and that was just what she had been looking for.

Jumping forward with her other leg, she drove her heel into the base of his neck, pushing him down and back, straight towards a hard fall with the ground.

What happened instead was Keigo grabbing her ankle and twisting around, throwing her on her own collision course with the flaky, sun baked earth. Once again, her other foot saved her as she managed to spin and land on it, perilously leaning backwards, only held up by Keigo's hand still locked around her ankle. He had been saved from the fall as well by her maneuver, pulled into a half squatting position and likewise leaning too far out backwards and only just balanced by her counterweight.

Grinning despite the situation, Tatsuki swung her sword towards her friend's hand, which he blocked in a quick motion that carried little grace. She tried to break his grip several more times that way, working on a quick strategy.

When Keigo blocked another swing on the outside of their defenses, he wasn't quite fast enough to avoid her pulling with her captive foot with a mighty effort, pulling both of the towards each other. Her other leg flew upwards and connected with his whisker laden jaw in a spiritually charged fan kick that took him off his feet and released her foot.

Rolling with the fall, Keigo dug his sword into the ground to bleed off momentum and then used it as a fulcrum to yank himself back towards Tatsuki with a lightning fast flurry catching her as she righted herself from her kick. While she blocked them, she was forced back several feet until she had reaffirmed her stance and defended herself evenly.

On the sidelines of their duel, Kenpachi watched with a critical eye.

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"And just who the hell are you?"

The man froze at Tatsuki's harsh words, the tomboy standing at the edge of their camp and glaring at him without pity. Her sword hung at the back of her belt where she had taken to carrying it over the past couple of years, but she didn't need naked steel to be intimidating. Not in the least.

"Y-Yoshiara Shostiueke." He mumbled, gripping his own, basic katana as a form of support. He had made his decision weeks ago, and he would just have to stick by it. "We-I heard that people were training as Soul Reapers out here."

Tatsuki raised as skeptical eyebrow at that. She and Keigo only ever went where Kenpachi went, and he remained with the Seireitei, and there weren't too many observers anywhere near there. Nobody could have seen them, let alone see that what they were doing without them sensing them first.

"Your-your Spiritual Pressures. We can feel them, even from miles away."

"You sensed _us_?" Very interesting.

Yoshiara swallowed a bit too audibly. "Yes, those of us who have higher than average spirit energies can sometimes feel...impressions, suggestions, of these much higher powers. You. I followed the feeling," he finished meekly, barely maintaining eye-contact.

 _'Makes sense,'_ Tatsuki allowed to herself, _'to any that actually could feel us, we'd be the biggest point of interest in probably the whole Soul Society.'_

Outwardly, she scowled a little harder. "So why did you track us down? Want to take a shot at ending us and becoming famous? The 'Next Big Thing'?"

"No! Nothing like that!" The panicked man waved frantically, thinking the conversation had just gone very, very badly against him. "I-I actually...I...I-"

"SPIT IT OUT DAMNMIT!"

He fell to his knees in pleading, his pack falling to the ground next to him.

"I wanted to be trained as well!" His voice rose to an almost hilarious pitch at the end.

"Oh? And do you think you have what it takes to be a Shinigami? To constantly fight against all threats, whether fellow soul or Hollow, and know that any day may probably be your last? Can you even swing that sword with killing intent?"

Yoshiara blanched as he looked down at the blade never once bathed in blood. He hated fighting, and here he was hoping to join the fighters? He must have been crazy to ever even think of coming here.

But that wasn't true. He knew exactly what he had been thinking when he had set off to find the Soul Reapers. He needed to keep a hold on that conviction, or he would just shrivel up on himself and die an unassuming death in a corner, never having made a difference.

Unsteadily, but unflinchingly, he looked back up at the silent warrior watching him. "I came here with the desire to protect, and that's just what I mean to do. With you, I have the best opportunity to as many as I can. So," he stood up again, feeling a weight in his stomach as he swore himself over to eternal violence, "yes, I will fight any threat that comes this way."

"Ha!" From directly behind the now petrified Shostiueke, Kenpachi loomed over him, having approached silently and listened in. He liked what he had heard. "Forget the frontlines kid, I see Fourth written all over you. Pansies through and through, but damn useful. Lucky for you, I personally spent enough time there getting patched up that I picked up a few of their little tricks and techniques. Keigo!" The monolithic soul called towards their current campsite. "Get some for furs out, we'll need another place to sleep!"

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The first building that was built was, appropriately, a crude barracks, the likes of which the men and women of the Eleventh would have called home. Though the seventeen that now followed him like puppies wasn't quite like the four hundred previously under his command, it had started to feel familiar.

"Oi! That one's my bed, jackass!"

"Yeah? Well then prove it Karin!"

Really familiar.

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The day Keigo and Tatsuki managed to achieve Shikai was perhaps the most painfully lucid he had spent in decades.

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" _Well look at that, they actually managed to beat your challenge!_ "

"So what? Twenty different Kido spells ain't that many."

" _It is if you only knew some of the names and just snippets of the incantations to teach them and told them to go from there._ "

"Not as if I'd ever actually learn any of that demon magic crap."

" _Hmmm._ "

"And what's that supposed to mean?"

" _Oh, nothing. I'm just proud of you is all._ "

"Well, you are a part of my soul, so not mush surprise their."

" _Crotchety Bastard._ "

"Nozarashi had better manners than you."

" _Hey, I can only take my examples from you, now can't I?_ "

"Don't be a smart ass."

With that final note, Kenpachi ceased his mental communication with the soul of his blade and turned to face one of the New Reapers (not his pick, but he'd been outvoted) as she jogged up to him in the space between two of the rather ramshackle buildings that made up their equally ramshackle village, or hamlet, or whatever the hell you wanted to call it.

"Hn?" He grunted in acknowledgment.

"Uh, Miss Arisawa is trying to beat up Marazoki and Ochauba to decide who has to fetch the bath water again."

"Is she losing?"

"Well, no; she's Miss Tatsuki."

"Then it's either a lesson or a punishment. Either way, nobody gets involved 'till it's over. You know the rules about sanctioned fights."

"It's just that Mr. Asano said you might want to be there because Miss Tatsuki agreed to tie both of her arms behind her back and let both of them use Shikai."

Kenpachi though for a moment before walking briskly towards where the fight would doubtlessly be taking place. "Yeah, maybe I should be there just in case. Don;t want those two idiots hurting themselves too much to be able to get the water."

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Tia Harribel stood near the back of her assault force, watching to make sure that order was maintained amongst the ranks of the lesser Hollows. The Menos were always the hardest to direct, since they could barely retain memory for five minutes straight, but she and her ever loyal Fracción were managing. Besides, the promise of a large meal was always enough to harness the cooperation of most Hollows in the cold sands of Hueco Mundo.

Deciding that the time had come, she signaled to Sung-Sun to head the mass gathering and a large garganta ripped itself into existence, opening a doorway into the Soul Society, the only place they had detected large amounts of reitsu in over two centuries. Scouts had reported a growing city in the middle of the ruins of the Seireitei filled with souls bursting with spiritual energy, and it was here that she had chosen to loose her forces in order to gorge their fill.

She had held a respect for the Soul Reapers, once upon a time, but they were all long dead, and there was no point in starving herself or those around her to appease the memory of those she had barely known, let alone cared for.

The huge wave of Hollows swarmed through the dimensional opening, raining down on the hapless city like the judgment of of an old and wrathful god.

For twenty two seconds, the pillaging went exactly as planned.

Then a colossal wave of raw spirit pressure and killing intent actually disintegrated well over a hundred Hollows, all Adjuchas level. Then there was some sort of commotion near the front that she couldn't see accompanied by multiple explosions of power than made her blink in surprise, about as emotional as she got recently.

Scores of the weaker Hollows were now running back into Hueco Mundo, running _away_ from whatever it was causing havok. That was unacceptable.

Drawing Tiburón in one smooth arc, she unhesitatingly cut through a Gillian that was passing her by as it fled. Without word or gesture, her Fracción gathered behind her and followed her to discover what would dare throw itself in the path of their lady.

An army of angry, excited and undeniably powerful souls battling the Hollows may not have been their first guess.

Everywhere they looked, sword wielding (no, that girl had a rocket launcher) souls were fighting, matching, _beating_ her vanguard. They suffered the occasional casualties, but every time one of them fell, another one wearing a blue sash would appear from out of nowhere and carry them away before the final blow could be delivered.

They weren't organized as an army: they were wild as a mob, and seemingly enjoying themselves while they ran rampant through her forces.

A pointed glance to Apacci and Mila Rose was enough for them to leap into the fray, swords drawn and howling for blood. They had grown incredibly in strength since Aizen's subjugation of the Arrancar, now rivaling some of the Espada of that age when fully released. She had never once been left wanting from their service to her, and had always enjoyed their irrefutable loyalty and devotion.

They didn't make it ten seconds out of the Garganta before they were brought to a halt by two other figures.

One was a woman, though it was slightly hard to tell with her spiky black hair cut so short. She had a scar that creased her bottom lip in the corner, making an automatic smirk or scowl depending on the rest of her face. At her waist was belted no less than five swords, though Harribel had the suspicion that they were truly Zanpakuto; the four on her sides, two on each, were all identical in length and the dark crimson of their sheathes, but the one just visible at the back of her belt was rich green with seven gold bands imposed at equidistance across it, and was perhaps several inched longer and held a deeper curve than its mates.

The other figure was clearly a man, with his neatly trimmed beard and long, wavy brown hair tied back in a casual tail. His dark eyes held an easy and friendly demeanor that only just masked the cold certainty and wicked anticipation. Hie sleeves were rolled up to reveal tattoos running up both forearms, tiny squiggles that at second glance became a long list of names: "Uryu Ishida...Orihime Inoue...Yasutora Sado...Kiuske Urahara...Yoruichi Shihoin..." His Zanpakuto was apparently already released, resembling a halberd instead of a katana, and it appeared to be made entirely out of thick, roiling, solid smoke.

They both wore painfully familiar white coats over their clothes.

"Sooo," began the man, grinning invitingly to Mila Rose, causing her to flush with anger, "are you going to start the introductions or...?"

"Franceska Mila Rose," she bit out, glowering even as she drew her own sword. Beside her, Apacci was staring daggers at the woman, who was taking the opportune lull to watch the fights going on below them.

"Emilou Apacci."

"Tatsuki Arisawa," the tomboy looked back at her opponent and grinned, "Captain of Squad Nineteen."

That garnered a reaction from both her adversary, Mila Rose and, though it was internal, Harribel herself. ' _Nineteen? But they were wiped out!_ '

"Keigo Asano," the male spoke up, his own smile now looking more devious as he relished in their discomfort, "Captain of the Twenty Second."

Whatever may have come next in the stand off was interrupted by the appearance of another one of these unexplained Shinigami, one of the blue sash wearing ones. His face was creased with worry and smile lines alike, and he had streaks of silver popping up in his bangs, despite his apparent young age.

Over his shoulder was slung the unconscious Sung-Sun.

"Here, take her," he instructed the nearest Hollow and deposited the Arrancar into its confused arms before turning to leave. He stopped just before leaving, manners catching up with him, and turned back to the gathered elites, and bowed modestly to the three other Arrancar women. "Yoshiara Shostiueke, Captain of Squad Seventeen, very pleased to meet you." And then he was gone, flash stepping back to the massive melee to offer medical assistance where he could and combat assistance everywhere else.

"That's it!" Apacci shrieked and threw herself at Tatsuki. Mila Rose followed her example and slammed her sword down onto the shaft of Keigo's smoke halberd. The two separate fights grew distant from Harribel, and she could again view the battlefield undistracted. It was clear that the Hollows were far superior in numbers, but that was the only advantage they had. The Soul Reapers had ferocity, home field advantage, battle lust, hard training and a dedicated medical force that was by itself too tough to wipe out in one and cripple the others. Even the low level Vasto Lorde she had brought were being matched by several other white coats apiece, more captains for this absurd order.

"Hm, ya' like it?"

Harribel swung around to point her sword at the source of the voice, and found herself looking at the back of a head: whoever he was, he was sitting down in the air and surveying the other half of the miniature war going on beneath them. Unconcerned , he didn't even turn to look at her. His white coat simply said '14'.

"Guess that's a no."

"Just who are you?" She hissed from behind her bone mask. She didn't believe she knew him, even if she could only see his shoulder length, dark gray hair.

"Me? Guess you can say I'm the Head Captain here."

Despite herself, Tia's eyes widened slightly. Could this be true?

"I am Tia Harribel, the Last Espada, Lady of Hueco Mundo and the Pariah Queen." She felt that spur of pride smolder in her chest whenever she had opportunity to say those wods.

"Yeah, I think I remember hearin' about you. Fought little Hitsugaya, didn't you?" He snorted. "Whatever. You can just call me Kenpachi Zaraki."

Now there was a name recalled from days long since past. The Kenpachi had been likened to a Boogeyman for the Hollows, his legendary status as an engine of war was insurmountable, overwhelming even the psychotic Nnoritora Gilga in sheer power. The only person who, if even mentioned, could cause the stony faced Tousen to straighten up in either fear or loathing.

A relic in need of being thrown out to make room for the new.

"Well, Kenpachi Zaraki, it seems that you are the one responsible for my vassals' plight, and the cause behind our pilgrimage being disrupted. For that, I will kill you here and now, atop the ruins of your failed community."

"Sister," Kenpachi turned to address her, both eyes communicating his lack of impress, "you've got things a little screwed the hell up in there, least of all being a raging bleach queen." Harribel had no idea what that was, but there was no mistaking an insult when it was made. "I'm not the one responsible for all this," he nodded his head toward the city below and its residents fighting tooth and nail above and around it. "They all are. If not for them I'd just be a mindless drone walking around until I rotted away. They got me off of my ass, so it's my job to watch all of theirs'."

Kenpachi stood up, revealing the lengthy katana that had been leaning up against him, and turned all the way around to look at the Espada. Then he unleashed the full restraint of his reiatsu and let it all blast her head on.

Harribel gasped at the tremendous weight of his spirit energy, briefly recalling the terrible anger of Souske Aizen.

Then her surprise turned into contempt.

"Perhaps once that power might have been enough to overwhelm me, but I have not been idle these long, long years. I have consumed and grown and evolved, a reaper in a far truer sense than pretentious pretenders such as you could ever hope to perceive. Now grovel, nameless Kenpachi, for the mercy I will not show. Destroy, Tiburón."

The wave of reiatsu that was unleashed was like a tidal wave where Kenpachi's was a splash. Anything too close to the epicenter either lost consciousness, died straight out or were repulsed out of the field of effect. The sky darkened from her fury and the ground shook, and that was only a passive response. She felt the ecstasy of power and basked in the unending satisfaction of truly being the strongest. Stronger than Yamamoto. Stronger than Yhwach. Stronger than Aizen.

But, standing just where he had been before, Kenpachi Grinned at her, sword propped over his shoulder.

"Now that is what I call 'god like'," he appraised openly, laughing heartily, unhinged. "Not even my shikai could hope to match that, and I gotta say I've wanted to say that for a very long time."

"Why?" Harribel inquired, humoring him before she eradicated him like the insignificant vermin he was. "Because you have been seeking death at the blade of one stronger than yourself?"

"Hell no!" His laughter took on a new meaning as he brought his sword up, spinning it twice before inverting his grip on it and holding it in front of his face, obscuring the eye with the scar running down it. "I've just been wanting somebody to try **all** of my techniques on." There was a terrible moment of premonition, where she knew that she shouldn't let him finish, that she should kill him, but her arrogance made her hesitate, and it was the last mistake she ever made.

" **BANKAAAAIIII!** "

Harribel froze in complete and absolute horror at what she beheld, and couldn't avoid the single attack that shattered her body like it was glass. She had likened her attack to a wrathful god before.

It ended with her waking one.


	2. Camp

**AN:** _As of this date, the latest chapter out for Bleach is 669, and I'm not really sure there should even be anything else. But it honor of the fact that this story TOTALLY F*CKING CALLED IT!, myself and my editor or going to be writing several shorts that tie-in to the main story and give a little more background They will not be chronologically linear, and you can put them wherever you like in the timeline, I don't really care so long as you enjoy them._

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"What do you call a camp that's got eighteen people all sleeping on blankets an' furs around one fire?"

Tatsuki looked up from the boot she was mending at Keigo, who was observing their collected group with almost comical intensity. She rather though he was channeling some of those old Kung-Fu movies she used to loan him back in school.

"I don't know; an encampment, maybe? Why?"

He looked at her, annoyed. Apparently it hadn't been an actual question. "I'm saying that we really can't just keep this up. We look more like a bandit gang than the next generation of Soul Reapers."

From where he was lying on his own blanket spread a few yards away, Kenpachi made a grunt that could either have been in amusement or scorn. They had long since learned to disregard the grunts that had no clear intention.

"I don't really know where you're going with this," Tatsuki verbally and physically shrugged as she hunched back over her boot, painstakingly threading the sole into place.

Keigo huffed. "We need to build a better shelter or-" he looked for emphasis, "any shelter. Four walls and roof. Privacy. Security."

"You're making a much bigger deal about it than you've ever done in the past," Tatsuki noted shrewdly, not looking up from her labor.

"Well, it just didn't seem as necessary when we were nomadic – but we haven't moved camp in a month and a half, and it's starting to seem like this will be where we might as well set our roots. A building would be the obvious first step."

Tatsuki stilled her hands, looking at her worn and battered boot but seeing what her closest friend and companion was painting with his unspoken words. Truth be told, she had given thought about what they would need if they were to continue in number, and adequate housing was top of that list. And it wasn't like it was a bad move in any regard she cared to see.

"I guess we could do that...but I highly doubt any of us have any experience or knowledge on building something so big."

Another grunt. This one was clearly meant to mock the concept of 'experience and knowledge'. They both looked over at their mentor.

"Trust me, you don't need any of that goin' in. You do what seems like it'd work, see if it crashes down from a good kick, build it again if it does, and just keep seein' what makes it less likely to fall apart every time. Eventually, you'll have something halfway respectable."

"I take it the Eleventh refined that process?" Keigo inquired with as dry and sardonic a tone as he could get away with without being called out for being a dick.

"I don't think we ever had a barracks that lasted more than two weeks at a time. They had a reputation of...exploding."

"I'm sorry – what?"

"Yumichika."

"...oh."

Tatsuki and Keigo exchanged a glance, and then a half shrug.

The first barrack caught on fire less than a week after construction.

The one after that was, impressively enough, transmuted into granite by someone's careless shikai activation.

The next one simply vanished when nobody was looking.

Kenpachi slept better than he had in decades.


	3. Task

The equine Hollow reared up, pincer-arms snapping in the air threateningly.

Keigo barely paused as he sprang forward and slashed it clean through the mask, landing in a run even as the would-be threat dissolved away.

To his sides, ahead, and behind him, all of his brother and sisters-in-arms ran with him, mowing down the mob of loose Hollows that blocked their path. The monsters had the very obvious edge in numbers, but the band of warriors in training were driven and focused, intent only on completing Zaraki's given mission, even if thousands of Hollows stood in their way.

Slightly ahead of him, Asano watched as a barbed appendage nearly disemboweled Yono, raking along his ribs and leaving uneven slices in his shirt and skin. But even as the mismatched creature moved in for another attack, Yoshiara appeared as if from nowhere, neatly deflecting the blade like tail off the flat of his katana as he wrapped an arm around Yono and vanished again, all within a heartbeat and a half. Then a backhanded swing from Tatsuki as she passed cleft the Hollow in the neck and it screeched in pain as it perished.

Like a wave of steel, resolve and no small amount of lunacy, the New Reapers (Keigo rather liked that name and wished he'd been the one to come up with it) pushed through the Hollows, thinning out their infestation of this sector of Soul Society until the scant few left wised up and departed either through Gargantas or by slinking off into the surrounding woods. The New Reapers would hunt them later, but for now...

Panting and sweating, Keigo slid to a halt, wiping away the dirt that had accumulated on his damp face and spitting out whatever had gathered on his tongue. Everyone else slowly joined him - all of them winded, some of them bloodied, and only a few of them with enough breath to laugh.

Before them, at the end of a mile long clearing through the heavily wooded forest that they had just purged of predators, sat a small, squat hut that didn't look like it could house more than three people at once. On one side of it, stacked up against the wall, were surprisingly well-crafted wooden crates, closed and sealed from the elements. On the other were three extremely large pots, each capable of acting as a bath for a grown man if need be.

And standing in the doorway, looking as absolutely unflustered as could be, was a shriveled old man with faded but still luxurious silk garments and inspecting them all with eyes foggy from age but still holding that daunting edge of a seasoned business man.

"Am I to believe that you lot are customers, or did you merely wish to cause as large a racket as was humanely possible and scare away any actual buyers?"

Keigo, usually the spokesperson for their group, floundered. He had had no idea that this man even existed, let alone that he was operating some kind of establishment in the middle of Hollow country. They'd just been told to wipe out any of the dark creatures in their path and let nothing stop their rush.

"Aw, but why'd you need other buyers when you got us?" Kenpachi boomed, suddenly at the head of their group when he hadn't been there a second before.

The old man had to crane his neck upwards a few degrees to look Kenpachi in the face, but when he did an exuberance lit up his wrinkled and craggy face and seemed to give him the energy of an adolescent for he bounded forward and clasped one of Zaraki's long hands in his comparatively miniature ones.

"Oh, my dear, dear friend! I had heard rumors that you still walked among us, but I had feared that to not be the case. How glad I am to be proven wrong!"

Kenpachi grinned toothily at the elation directed his way, letting the small man continue on as such for a few seconds before speaking over him and cutting of his plentiful thanks to the powers that be.

"Hey, listen up Oyakaa; we came here for your business, and while it's good to see you too, I'd rather we catch up when m'boys are properly rewarded."

The old man, now identified as Oyakaa, glanced around the towering form of the last Captain and appraised the ragged group with a different intent. "But of course! Allow me to fetch you the first crate."

As he hustled off, Keigo and Tatsuki strode up to stand at Kenpachi's sides. "So what was all this about? You wanted us to kill dozens of Hollows just to find an old man in the forest?" Keigo rather bluntly demanded. But as Oyakaa returned with one of the crated just barely held in his thin arms, Zaraki didn't give his student's tone much mind.

"Not just any old man:" he reached down and pried the lid off the crate with his bare fingers and extracted a slate colored bottle stoppered with a wax plug, "the last Sake Baron in the entire Soul Society!"

At the word 'sake', the rest of the New Reapers surged forward to attack the other crates being brought to them, pulling out the bottles and gleefully downing the booze without bothering with formality.

Keigo painfully slapped a hand to his face as Tatsuki groaned and let her head droop backwards. Leave it to the Kenpachi to risk his entire group just to get plastered. How had the Eleventh survived as long as it had?!


	4. Triage

The anxious Shostiuke carefully peeled the patch of cloth acting as a bandage away from Gon's leg, peeking at the stale blood and worrying pus of the injury beneath. The hapless fighter had run afoul of a poison variety Hollow and had learned the hard way that some caution went a long way.

"It doesn't appear to be infected," the healer murmured to himself, an unconscious Gon being a poor audience anyway. Reaching over to a stone basin crudely chiseled out of an oblong rock, he scooped up a sizable dollop of the viscous yellow paste resting within and gently spread it over the wound, being sure to completely cover where the pus was the most concentrated.

Quickly wiping his hands on an only slightly fouled rag, Yoshiara crab-walked over to Shomo, who lay just a few feet away on his bedroll with a refreshingly non-Hollow related injury. The handsome idiot had broken his ankle and cracked his tibia, both while trying to climb a steep embankment of loose stones on the side of a quarry several miles to the south. Unlike the bull-headed Gon, Shomo was wide awake and feeling the entirety of his injuries with an entirely sober mind.

Ignoring the pitiful groans and whimpers, Yoshi tugged lightly on the bindings of the splint to check if they needed retying, then ensured that the padding inside the strips of wood safely nestled the swollen limb between them. It seemed like his work was holding up, so he told the handicapped New Reaper (a name he worried made them sound too much like a gang) to show him his hands. A cursory look revealed that the cuts and scrapes he'd received while falling were still cleaned and in no great need for attention.

Then it was to Fuuka's side. She was technically their latest addition, but her induction had consisted entirely of discovering her in the forest, passed out from hunger and showing clear signs of malnourishment and exposure to the elements. She had been slipping in and out of consciousness for the past several days, mumbling deliriously regardless of which state she was in. He had washed her entire body with soft cloths to re-hydrate the starved pores, as well as to wipe away as much of the grime and grease that had accumulated over an unknown number of days wandering around without sufficient method of sanitation.

Whenever she seemed to be awake, if not coherent, she was fed a thin onion and carrot broth kept specially for her. He had no experience or knowledge on what to do for someone in her condition, but he felt confident that he wasn't making it any worse at least. Her green hair was lank and unkempt, but he had tried to rinse it out once a day to try and prevent it from going brittle and falling out. Her skin, while still a pale and sickly yellow in places, was starting to show some signs of renewal and indicated that she was healing on the inside. She was still sleeping fitfully, so he let her be.

With a rare quiet moment, Yoshi went over to another basin, this one cut deeper into its stone, and dampened a nearby rag in the water inside. Cleaning off his hands, he strode over to regular camp from his slightly distanced 'medical ward', nodding a silent greeting to the sentry walking by.

Keigo was sitting by the fire and, when he saw their medic approaching, waved him over and patted a spot on the log next to him. Sitting gratefully, Shostiuke was soon engrossed in a conversation with the others sitting around them about what kind of Zanpakuto they though they might have if they ever awakened that power. He laughed reedily at someone's joke and accepted the plate of fire-roasted meat that was being passed between them, burning his fingers on the morsels.

He didn't see or feel it, but a tiny spark of green light danced on his fingertips and eased the pain.


	5. Name (1)

The mud splattered up and into his face, obscuring his vision under the thick muck. He swiped at it with the back of his sword arm, stumbling backwards in a clumsy attempt at gaining some safe distance.

The Hollow's stinger pierced his chest just underneath the right side ribs.

Loosing a gurgle of pain, he lashed out blindly, hacking his sword through the air like a lunatic, but the Hollow had already retreated out of striking distance, the stinger leaving his abdomen numb and cold, possible signs of venom or just shock. He stopped his wild attack, shaking badly and clutching futilely at the fist sized hole perforating his flesh. He tried to listen over the sound of the stinging rain for the Hollow, but it was either too far away no or being completely silent.

It knew that it was only a matter of time now.

Keigo used the knuckle of his thumb to clear out his eyes, the slimy grime spreading as he did. He couldn't see the insectoid Hollow anywhere around him, which he decided to take as an opportunity to figure out his options, woefully limited as they were.

He decided that he needed to move, to find any form of shelter that he could stumble across out here in the wastes. It beat waiting here in the open, slowly dying and shadowed by a hungry beast.

He didn't bother picking a direction – just letting his feet carrying him wherever they willed. His arms felt like weights, dragging his body down and forcing him to slump. His legs, on the other hand, felt worryingly light, like they were made from burlap and cotton rather than flesh and bone. They were also starting to tingle painfully, they had fallen asleep underneath him. It didn't bother him too much, what with the other explosion of pain that was his chest pulsing with every step, but it was important to note these things for possible treatment reasons...or something; his brain was feeling awfully sluggish. He couldn't even remember why he was out here in the middle of nowhere, fighting a Hollow and nowhere near the others. It all seemed like it had happened days ago...days ago...

He tripped on the rock studded ground and fell flat on his chest. A strangled howl tore itself from his throat even as he bared his teeth to the dark and clouded sky. Clutching at the wound, he waited -prayed- that the pain would go away, leave him numb and unable to feel his life spilling out from between his fingers. It lessened, slightly, but it did not abate.

With jerky motions, he got back to his knees, needing several seconds to recover his bearings before standing again. Every point of the horizon looked the same, but he couldn't see very far anyway. His sword was heavy, but his fingers were stiff when he wasn't concentrating, so it stuck between useless digits; dragging in the mud, leaving a crooked trail that, if he looked, would have revealed several curves where he'd changed direction without knowing.

Hot bile was rising in his throat, burning with an acidic intensity. He ignored it for several seconds, fought it for a few after, then succumbed and collapsed back to his knees, heaving with the force of his expulsion. The puddle beneath his mouth was a foamy yellow tinged with specks of incriminating red.

With a thread of saliva left to bridge the gap, Kaigo sucked in breath like it was in short supply. He could feel a wet pain seeping into his chest, inward as well as outward. It could just be the damage caused by the stinger, but that didn't even convince his half unconscious mind.

Rolling onto his back, he stared with glazed eyes at the pregnant storm clouds looming above, the only sight for miles around. It had rained hours ago, but they still threatened another downpour. It seemed fitting, in that sad and ironic way that seemed to follow him, that he would die under such gloom.

He closed his eyes, not wanting to look at the black and sodden grays. They didn't interest him anyway.

 _"O, but you should be interested Kaigo. You should be most interested."_

His eyes slowly opened again, wide with shock.

 _"Yes, I am speaking to you now, when the end seems so close. We have much to discuss."_


	6. Attempt

With a walk that spoke of confidence and a not out of place propensity for the dramatic, the cloaked figure stepped over a large pile of blankets by the cooking fire and strode straight up to the barracks door, which he rapped against with the pommel of his sheathed katana, held in his hand and hidden beneath the folds of the ratty and worn cloak like a conjurers wand.

The New Reapers (Fuuka had been particularly vocal about not changing their name, seeing as they all identified with it now on some level and that proved it was the best choice) were watching with an open and slightly amused curiosity as the theatrical stranger waited on the single step of the ramshackle building, hidden in what was undoubtedly supposed to be a mysterious manner by the lightly flapping cloak, which they were sure was being pushed at from underneath to create the effect.

After a moment, the door did open and Yoshiara stepped out, sleeves rolled up and a dirty apron tied over his clothes - both speckled with blood. "Yes?"

The stranger took a moment before responding, trying to build the suspense (they were beginning to wonder if this person had not overindulged in the samurai manga whilst still among the living). "I have heard that a man claiming to be the dead Kenpachi resides here. If he thinks such a title is so easily claimed, then..." He reached up with one hand and grabbed hold of a fist full of his cloak, yanking it off with clearly practiced flair. "I mean to challenge him for it!"

He was handsome enough, they supposed, to be a mysterious stranger that wandered into town with quiet menace, though his chin seemed a bit too weak. Besides his looks, he was rather unremarkable, wearing plain clothes in neutral colors and a faded blue sash that was his belt. His katana was likewise of simple make and design, though it looked to have seen a fair amount of use and was held comfortably in his hand without being drawn yet.

"You want to challenge Kenpachi?" Yoshi had raised an eyebrow in some confusion, unsure the unnamed man was entirely lucid. Heatstroke maybe?

"Or is he just a fantasy dreamed up by a group of cast-offs and weaklings in a sad attempt to frighten away those with any real power?" The Stranger, whose name everyone now decided was irrelevant, sneered up at the healer, making a point to grab the hilt of his sword in a very male show of dominance (penis metaphor!).

Yoshi pulled a cloth from a pocket in his apron and slowly wiped at the dried blood on his hands from where it had gotten while he'd been preparing dinner. He quite honestly felt sorry for this poor schumck, though not enough to try and dissuade him. Leaning to the side, he addressed the pile of blankets so readily ignored by the Stranger. "Mr. Zaraki, you've got another one."

"I heard, dammit!" was the irate reply.

The Stranger whipped around, pulling his sword a few inches from its sheath and assuming a half crouched stance, ready for the sneak attack that was sure to come.

Kenpachi just grumbled to himself as he stood up from where his nap had been interrupted.

...and positively towered over the Stranger.

Off to the side, Keigo and Tatsuki just shook their heads as they saw worry and alarm flash through the idiot's eyes while he stood there for several seconds, frozen like a mime. Then that dramatic confidence returned and he straightened up, scowling up (and up) at Kenpachi while also keeping his sword partially revealed. Machoism was starting to stink the place up.

"So, you're the pretender I've heard about. Pathetic. You don't even have a sword of your own!"

Several sets of eyes turned to where the chipped nodachi was waiting by the fire to act as a makeshift spit for the two wild pigs they'd hunted earlier. The Stranger took no notice, and Kenpachi merely scratched at his ear in a bored manner.

"I suppose you wanna challenge me to become the next Kenpachi?" he drawled, not even putting any effort into it.

"Ha! As if you have any claim to that title! You're just some brute that can bully all the weak people into thinking he's some great warrior while they scamper around you and pay tributes for your ' _protection'_."

The New Reapers were really starting to not like this guy.

Kenpachi just heaved a very put upon sigh, letting his eyes pan around over the camp. He just so happened to spot the carefully stacked and stored sealed crates that were more precious than gemstones around here. A wicked smile worthy of frightening small children lifted his lips, giving the Stranger cause to to wilt slightly under his bravado.

"Tell you what; how about instead of a duel, you can challenge me in a little competition – winner gets to be the new Kenpachi."

Immediately, several of the New Reapers cleared away from one of the small tables they had cobbled together, leaving two empty seats facing each other. The Stranger appeared taken aback by this deviation from whatever script he was running in his head, but proved to be far less wary than anyone else would have been around an eight foot tall maniac and nodded reluctant agreement.

Kenpachi strolled over to the table and plopped down in one of the seats, beckoning to Yoshiara. The healer and that night's designated cook quickly brought over one of the capped jugs, the sounds of sloshing liquids audible through the thick pottery. The Stranger sat down slowly, eyes darting from the behemoth to the medic with suspicion.

Without ceremony, Yoshi set the jug down in the middle of the table and put a thin saucer in front of both 'contestants'. Kenpachi readily took hold of the jug and blithely pulled the stopper out with his teeth.

"Rules are simple," he began as he (quite hospitably) poured the Stranger's dish first, "last one conscious is the Kenpachi."

The Stranger had obviously realized by now that this was a mere drinking game. Hs confidence soured once again, threatening to darken the sun with its inflation. "Ha ha ha ha! You really are an idiot! There hasn't been a working sake still in years! What's this then, juice?" He cackled with glee before bringing it up to his lips and dow-

His body folded like a house of cards, the saucer spilling the rest of the sake down his front as he flopped against the table and slid to the ground in an undignified heap. Kenpachi paused, his own saucer only halfway to his lips.

"Well shit..." He leaned back to look under the table at the Stranger, now snoring quite contentedly. "Just like that Amagai wuss." Shrugging, he quaffed his sake, refilled and repeated twice, then got up to return to his nap. The rest of the New Reapers got back to their day, ignoring as the Stranger started to giggle like a loon.


	7. Archer (1)

Quintinus had been sleeping in trees for years, and it never seemed to get any more comfortable.

He blamed his cushy life before, before he had been reduced to a vagrant scampering all across the Soul Society looking for a scrap of food and fearing for his life every time he closed his eyes. Once, he'd come from a fairly well to do family, with two older brothers who had teased him often but had never been cruel, and a mother and father that had expected great things from all their children in the service of their King.

Quintinus was perhaps the very last Quincy.

Well...former Quincy, to be honest. And just in the Soul Society.

During the invasion, he had been among the many faceless members of the ground forces sent as a vanguard for the Sternritter, those untouchable elites that were held so far above everyone else in the army of His Majesty, and and he had been expected to fulfill his duty like a good soldier and lay his life down in their war against the 'corrupt and bloated' soul reapers. He had fought, just as he was trained to do, and for a few minutes it seemed like they were a nigh unstoppable force of judgment and would soon end the long lived conflict between their two peoples.

And then he had seen one of their Captains.

Nearly all of the Quincy forces had seen the recordings of the various Captains fighting throughout the decades and centuries, though only the Sternritter needed the information to use their Medallions. He had seen the impressive displays of power, and he'd been awed by them, but they had all been told, over and over, that no Captain was the equal of a Sternritter, and they would crumple without their precious Bankai.

But the recordings didn't give any hint at the awful, suffocating pressure that the Captains (and even some of the Lieutenants) could exude when going all out. It was a nightmare he had never thought to have – choking on perfectly fine air, feeling the very reishei around him squeezing his body like a titan's fist. And that hadn't even been when their Bankais had been activated yet.

After the first push, when the Seireitei had been savaged in exchange for several hundred of his peer's lives - in the willing service of their king - he did not go with his group as they exfiltrated back to the Schatten Bereich. He didn't spend hours or days agonizing over the decision; it popped into his head fully formed and he didn't hesitate to act on it, to desert the only life he knew.

Running away, he hadn't dared think about what he was doing, not giving himself the chance to second guess himself. He was being a coward, no hiding from that. The Captains were beyond terrifying in their strength, and he was expected to willingly throw himself at them?! No, no he wasn't just going to blindly follow the edict of a ruler who valued his life no more than the enemies'.

So he ran, ran as far away as he could. He knew that returning to his native realm was out of the question. Yhwach saw all in his domain, and it would be a matter of minutes before he was dragged back and either punished severely, or outright executed. Hueco Mundo, though accessible, was not a place a sane being went to survive for any period of time, so that was out as well. And the Living World was beyond his reach, so it was by default that Seireitei was the place he tried to hide in. He could only hope that Yhwach won and wouldn't care enough about a single deserter to expend resources to reclaim him, or the Soul Reapers managed to defeat him and then didn't ever find out about him.

He hadn't been gone very long when he woke up in the middle of the night to find that he had died.

Not exactly accurate, but that was the end result. Being that he and all the other Quincy were living souls, entering into the Seireitei would have been impossible (barring the transmutation of their bodies into soul form, a method reputedly known only by one, mad candy shop owner) without their powers and abilities, despite technically being of that real originally. Quincy, by definition, were nearly the polar opposite of a Soul Reaper in function, which meant that their dimensions were likewise geared towards their inhabitants, and it was an effort to defy that limitation, one that any average citizen of the Shadow Realm would find far too taxing for . So when the Soul Palace had been destroyed in that final battle, and Yhwach, font of all Quincies, was killed, Quintinus silently lost his powers and was converted into a regular soul. Effectively dead, for all intents and purposes.

The war had ended in a second, and the wayward Quintinus had found that he no longer had even the phantom of choice. Numbly, he had survived for years; scrounging up a shoddy hunting bow early on from some of the natives, slowly losing his fine clothing to time and the elements, becoming more weathered than someone his age had any right to be. His blonde hair had been distinctive, but now it was rarely clean enough to be distinguished from light brown, and his gray eyes were always tired, always looking for something that wasn't there.

He never settled down in any one place – insistent on drifting like the wind. He mostly sustained himself off of what he'd learned in the wild and the animals he killed, necessity making for a decent motivator. Every so often, he'd find a small settlement, rarely larger than four or five buildings grouped together at the corner of a forest. He'd stay for a day, maybe two if the weather was cold enough, and trade what he could for some supplies he needed or a new bow if his current one was giving up the ghost. He'd lost his sexual desires somewhere, but he would occasionally sleep with a girl who took a liking to him, just for the novelty of another's heat next to him in the night.

He wasn't without other problems. Wild animals, wolves and other such carnivores, were just as plentiful as deer and geese, and often set their sights on making him their meal that night. Bandits roamed the land as much as he did, looking for an easy score for them to exploit in any way they wanted and not at all reluctant to try to slit a sleeping man's throat (starting to see why he has to sleep in trees yet?).

Hollows were the worst, though. Unlike Bandits, who only targeted him when they saw him, or the animals, which would track his scent if he wasn't careful, the various Hollows that would slink about were drawn from miles around by his Reiryoku, ravenous for the meal he presented. He no longer had any of his Quincy powers, but he wasn't just a normal soul either, and the elevated level of his power (that he had no way of using) made him stand out from all the others as a beacon for any Hollow that wanted to try and take him on.

Ooh, you better believe he didn't make it easy for them. He'd somehow survived his earliest encounters with the monsters, not always intact but slightly smarter each time, and had put together plans of action for evading, deterring, or outright combating Hollows that tried to take a bite out of him every so often. The arrows he used were usually only effective against the smaller ones, and he didn't have the materials necessary to craft heavier arrow heads for the bigger ones, so he became proficient in trap making; from the classical covered pit, caltrops, vine woven nets and noise-makers, all the way to tripwire activated swinging logs, makeshift fox traps, spike springs and even, for a particularly persistent Hollow, an engineered quicksand patch that had taken him two and a half weeks to set up but had definitely been worth the effort in the end.

Life was taken up by survival, and he didn't have time for daydreams and fantasies. He no longer cared about what he had lost by leaving the world he had known – odds were that he wouldn't have lived if he hadn't. He wasn't comfortable, certainly not content, but the uncertainty had slowly become reassuring in an odd way; if he died, it wouldn't be because he was an insignificant piece on the board but simply the world working as it had for countless millenia before he had been born. He could appreciate that.

And then, one day, when he had found himself in a slightly larger settlement for the night, he caught word of something out of the ordinary: a group, exact numbers unknown, of individuals with high Reiryoku banding together somewhere in the expanse of scarred earth that was all that remained of the Seireitei. It was whispered that the last Shinigami was their leader. It was said...Kenpachi Zaraki yet lived.

Quintinus almost immediately discarded this as superstitious rumor and tried to think nothing more of it. But, weeks later, he still couldn't shake the idea, and it grew into something very dangerous: curiosity. He felt as though his body was slowly starting to reanimate, regain what had been abandoned in the name of subsistence. More weeks went by and he felt his resolve slipping. He wanted - _craved_ \- for something meaningful, even if it was just to see a pathetic gang of pretenders scrabbling in the ashes of a long dead empire. He had gone for so long without any voice or color in his world that the prospect of a veritable menagerie of intrigue...he decided that just a peek wouldn't hurt.

That was how he found himself flat on his back, sword at his throat, and pinned quiet securely by an irate and somewhatkindofdefinitely naked Tatsuki Arisawa.

"Alright creep, you've got five seconds to give me a really good reason why you were watching me take a bath before I cut your head off and continue with my day."

Quintinus couldn't help but laugh in relief.


	8. Archer (2)

Quint soon concluded that not sleeping in trees was almost as bad as it was to sleep in them. Too many years spent expecting an attack to fully appreciate a bedroll and campfire.

Despite his sleeping difficulties - definitely not because of them - he found that being part of the New Reapers (he considered the name childish and superficial, but he wasn't about to speak out against it any time soon) was actually not entirely unpleasant. Sure, most of them were thuggish, immature and perhaps a bit too loud for a former isolationist. But they were also wildly protective of their own, supportive – in their own, brash way – and they had accepted him into their fold quite quickly after Tatsuki had dragged him in after his 'interview'.

Kenpachi had eyed him up and down that first day, possibly to try and spot any potential in the bowman, but equally as possible that he had been trying to gauge whether or not he would have made a decent snack. Hard to tell the difference with that guy.

Somehow, somewhere, in their frequent supply runs into the surrounding Soul Society, the Reapers had acquired a rectangular wooden chest filled with generic (meaning not soul-bound) swords of a few different varieties, not all of them Japanese. From the bunch, Quint had been encouraged to find himself a blade, never mind his insistence that he was perfectly fine with just his bow. Fuuka, the de facto Quartermaster of the New reapers alongside her other role as information specialist, had informed him that he wouldn't always get to have the luxury of range when it came time to fight for his life, or defend his new allies.

Quint had silently scowled at the implication that he would be defenseless in a close-quarters fight, but he'd relented and poked through the mismatched collection until he'd found one that had caught his eyes. Unusually shaped for a sword, it more resembled an over sized thorn than anything else. The grip was polished black wood with space enough for just a one handed grip, and there wasn't a guard between it and the curved blade of non-reflective steel that almost looked to be the same shade. It was wickedly sharp, but it was too thin and slightly too long to be used for chopping or hacking at an opponent; this was a weapon of finely directed finesse and cunning, balancing on the line between rapier and katana.

It was light, too, so it didn't offset him too badly when he wore it at his side and went out with the others. Still preferring his bow to the new sword, he would often take to the trees during a Hollow attack, firing from the branches as he moved about to maximize coverage and decrease the likelihood of being hit by return fire. Fighting alongside others was certainly different than he remembered, and it took some time before he was confidant enough to trust them to watch his back.

Interestingly, his knowledge of traps was quite popular among the hunters and foragers. They had mostly been stuck using basic snares and rock traps to capture game, and that meant food wasn't exactly in abundance at any given time. He did his best to teach them the things he had been forced to learn on instinct and hard won experience, finding that even though they would fumble the first dozen or so attempts, they were decent enough learners and were soon mimicking his work with acceptable levels of efficiency. Slowly, they started having more and more to eat every night, even having leftovers for the next morning. His approval among the group was surprisingly healthy after only a year.

Tatsuki and Keigo, however, still kept their eyes on him when they thought he couldn't tell. At first, he assumed it was because of his rather unorthodox introduction, and that the two of them were sharing a bedroll so his infraction wasn't appreciated. But he quickly learned that if they were in any sort of relationship, it was that of brother and sister and not lovers, so that theory was shot down. He didn't know much about them besides what he heard from the others, and that was mostly hearsay. He couldn't do much about their suspicion, but he never ignored it.

Ironically, he was more wary of them than he was of Kenpachi Zaraki himself. The tower of a man was surprisingly non threatening on most days, preferring to take naps, instruct sword drills, eat his fill, and take 'walks', the destruction from which providing most of their fire wood. He rarely sparred against any of the New Reapers for the simple reason that he would likely accidentally kill them if he did. Even the original two, Keigo and Tatsuki, the strongest of them and the most advanced in training, couldn't last a full minute when teamed up against Kenpachi. The man was practically battle personified, and trying to fight back was like trying to push against the wind with your breath.

However, Quintinus was given incentive to hypothesize that by being in close vicinity to someone like him, whose spirit energy was hardly controlled and highly potent, other souls began to develop their own powers and abilities at an accelerated rate. It was like Kenpachi was a conductor of sorts to their Reiryoku, amplifying it through the veritable 'tough love' that was his own destructive spirit pressure that at any second could flare too high and kill them all. Similar to a survival instinct, almost.

He shared this theory with Yoshiara, the prematurely aged medic. Despite being quite young, being the only source of medical treatment for a group that had inherited a good deal of the previous Squad 11's spirit was extremely taxing and his hair sported several gray streaks along with creases by his eyes. But he hadn't let that ever get him down, and he was was always very personable and willing to talk, intelligent enough to be able to hold his own on most topics. He thought Quint's idea had a fair deal of merit to it, and actually explained a good deal about the New Reapers, though he suggested not putting any tests towards proving it.

"When your subject of inquiry is Kenpachi, it's best not to try and apply logic where it doesn't belong." Sage advice indeed.

Walking away from the Infirmary, he was stopped by a voice calling to hum. Looking over his shoulder, he was taken aback to see Asano leaning against the building, apparently having been waiting for him. He didn't look very happy, but Quint had yet to see him otherwise.

"What were you talking to Yoshi about?" Frank, and without preamble.

"I don't really see that that's any of your business," Quint shot back, equally curt. He didn't want to start a fight, but he wasn't just about to let anyone steam roll him like a chump.

"If it's about the New Reapers, then yeah, it IS my business." He pushed away from the wall and walked towards the bowman, stopping a few paces off. "My first priority is to the protection of my new family, and any threat to them will have hell to pay."

Quint narrowed his eyes. "Are you saying I'm a threat?"

"I'm saying that you could very well be, and I'm not taking any chances."

Neither had a hand on their weapons, but that could change in an instant. Quint was glad nobody was around to see this, as that would add undesired attention and confusion to this already volatile situation. Though he had expected Arisawa to be nearby. Perhaps Asano was taking this upon himself? The only reasonable explanations for wanting to exclude someone just as powerful as yourself from a confrontation was due to a deeply ingrained urge to protect. But protect her from what?

"You really think I'm going to try and kill everyone?" A hint of sarcasm colored his words, though only to shield his caution. "What possible reason could I have for doing that?"

The point of Keigo's sword was inches from his throat in a move faster than his eyes could track, leaving him gawking like an idiot. Also like an idiot, he had completely forgotten that Keigo had perfected his sword draw to a flawless shine. A little too late for regrets now...

"Your kind didn't need much reason before." Quint looked up from the polished steel and saw that a carefully stoked fire was burning in Keigo's eyes; an anger tempered more finely than the blade itself. "We know that you're a Quincy. Kenpachi does too, but he's letting us sort you out. Do you think any of us have forgotten why this is a barren waste? Or why all our friends are dead?!"

he was frozen for an eternal second, fear and alarm burning familiar tracks through his veins. This was, if he thought about it, possibly the worst situation he could have ended up in, save for being at the end of Kenpachi's sword instead. He recognized that it was far too late to try and concoct a cover story, so he was left with the truth, or at least as much of the truth as he was willing to divulge.

"You're right: I was a Quincy. But after the end of the war, I lost my powers and ability to get back home."

"So you joined up hoping that you could become powerful enough to get them back? Wipe us all out to look good four your homecoming?" He jabbed forward to punctuate his theory, nearly drawing blood.

"Listen you idiot," Quint growled, his frustrations getting the better of him. "I'm not a Quincy and never will be again. And I'm not a Soul Reaper either. I don't belong to either caste, and I can choose where my loyalties lie, but I am not a backstabber!" He pointed a finger at Keigo, making sure to get his hand close to the brandished sword. "I am not your enemy. But I won't be your friend, either, if you keep threatening and accusing me."

Keigo shook his head, sword not wavering. "If you think I'm just going to believe you out of hand, you've got another thing coming. Uryu told me a thing or two about Quincies, and one of them was that you were just as good at getting into people's heads as you were with a bow."

At the passing name drop, the other shoe finally dropped. Quint's eyes widened in unguarded understanding, at last seeing the other side to the picture. "You were one of the human friends of Ichigo Kurosaki."

Keigo actually flinched, whatever memories he carried obviously causing him great distress. Despite himself, Quint felt a tinge of pity for the young soul, strangely empathizing with someone who had lost everything they had ever cared about too. This wasn't a matter of pride or anger: Keigo and Tatsuki were terrified for this new family of theirs, just as he had said but he'd been to annoyed to truly see what he meant.

"Yeah, Ichigo was our friend..." Keigo ground his teeth as he screwed his eyes up, suppressing an unknown emotion. "And he died fighting the Quincies, as did Uryu, Chad, Orihime, and the entirety of the soul reapers. We thought the war was over, but in you walk, acting so much like Uryu that we though you might have been his reincarnation. He was always quiet and reserved, suffering no foolishness and only talking when he had something to say. It could have been coincidence, but you practically move the same as him too! And who else but a Quincy would be so experienced with a bow as to prefer it over a sword?"

It could all have been conjecture on his part if not for the time they had spent observing him. They had waited until they knew for certain whether he had been one of the heavenly sentinels of the Schatten Bereich.

"So now you kill me? Take the only course of action that guarantees the New Reapers safety? Aren't I one of you as well, or have I just been imagining the past half year."

"As long as you're a possible threat, there's no way we can trust you." Keigo steadied himself, taking a breath to ready himself.

 _'While this drama has been somewhat amusing, I believe it has outlived its welcome on the stage.'_

 _"Oh, so NOW you decide to chime in? Couldn't have tried to persuade his Zanpakuto or something?"_

 _'I'm not sure you understand how Zanpakuto work.'_

 _"Oh forget it."_

 _'Now would be a good time to dodge by the way.'_

Quint spun to the side as Keigo's sword stabbed into the space he had been but a second before, turning the movement into diving roll and stopping a few steps away, crouched low and sword half drawn. Keigo was in hot pursuit, sword pulled in close to his waist with both hands in preparation of a crippling overhead swing.

Though his life was being threatened, Quintinus didn't care to retaliate in kind, especially when he was sure his opponent was much stronger than him. His only advantage was in speed, which kept him ahead of Keigo's strikes, though not by a comfortingly large margin. Dancing from foot to foot, he swerved his body in inelegant maneuvers that he was sure would have made the traditional Quincy battlemasters roll in their graves if they could see them.

"Damn it Asano, I am not your enemy! Think for one second!" He knew he could only hold out for a few more moments before he'd be forced to draw his sword in defense, but he wanted to exhaust the possibility of diplomacy before that point; whether he was perceived as a threat or not, he was still one of them, and it wouldn't reflect well on him if he cut off Keigo's arm.

"This needs to be done," the cold eyed reaper growled, twirling his katana around his back once before bringing it back down on Quin't guard strong enough to stagger him. A followup kick to the chest sent him sprawling in the dirt before he could recover his footing, breathing heavily and with sword drawn and ready in one hand and sheathe clutched in the other. Asano now approached at a slower pace, eyes measuring with an absolute detachment that chilled Quintinus' bones.

 _"_ _Are you just going to let me die?!"_

 _'If it were up to me, no, I wouldn't. But you're the one calling the shots here.'_

 _"_ _Why would I restrict you? I don't want to die!"_

He parried a devilishly fast series of cuts aimed at his arms, hopping back away from the advance. He noticed from the corner of his attention that other New Reapers had finally started to run towards them, mouths agape with surprise and concern, but he knew they wouldn't dare impose on the fight for fear of their own lives. It was better this way.

 _'True, but you have been living under your own restriction for so long that not even mortal peril can shake you from your true fear.'_

Ducking under a sweep, he threw himself into a roll, slicing at Keigo's ankles as he went and only slightly surprised that the senior Reaper was fast enough to dodge away.

 _"_ _Restriction?! What are your talking about?"_ He was getting desperate now. He could see his own demise fast approaching and his only hope for survival was constantly eluding him.

 _'That of identity. You have always been terrified of fully belonging to a group or ideal, even the one you were raised to believe in and willingly sacrifice yourself for. You are correct in your summation that you are neither a Quincy or a Shinigami, but you most certainly belong to both worlds, a unique being with the potential of both – a Quincygami, if you will.'_

 _"_ _What nonsense are you driveling? He is trying to gut me, and you're spouting theology!"_

 _'I am TRYING to show you the way! You have been denying who and what you are for so long that I am nothing more than a voice in your head, not the companion I should be! Your heritage insists that you are a Quincy, but your Soul demands that you are a Soul Reaper, and they are both right! Only YOU are denying the truth!'_

A lance of pain and a ribbon of blood flew from his arm. The cut was deep and long, nearly rendering his arm immobile but for strength of will. His left handed grip on his sword was quickly made slick from the crimson fluid. Keigo narrowed his eyes, sensing the end of the fight was near.

 _"_ _I am not...I am neither of those! I do not belong-"_

 _'BECAUSE YOU DO NOT LET YOURSELF!'_ The roar was deafening and his vision erupted in a flurry of black blobs from the force of it. _'You let that fear of rejection and failure determine your path for too long! Take control of your life, Quintinus Avguard, and become the man you were always destined to be. Hear my name and let us finally become one!'_

With death standing over him, Quint experienced the next second in stunning clarity. Keigo, forgoing drawing it out, had raised and swung his arm in flash, fully intent on delivering the killing blow. The observing Reapers shared looks of confusion and shock, some finally but futilely starting towards them to stop the fight. His own blood painting his exposed forearm in a morbid sleeve of red.

And the voice divulging its name, entrusting him with the secret of their bond.

With a shriek of metal, he brought both sword and sheath up in a cross guard to catch Keigo's attack bare inches from his face, but he only needed the single moment. With a fire he didn't know was waiting for that exact moment, the words rose from him with an explosion of power and intent.

"Rise, _Morgen Stern_!"

In the ensuing flash of spirit power, Keigo's grin was almost overlooked, as were his muttered words. "It's about time."


	9. Surgery

Yoshiara ran at a dead sprint through the congested forest, suffering stinging branches whipping against his arms and face with little care. His breath was burning lively in his throat, seemingly draining away required oxygen like an oozing wound. His katana bounced erratically against his hip, the simple cord he had used to fasten the sheath to his belt providing little in the way of support. His satchel for collecting herbs was left lost where it had fallen free, not even warranting a backward glance.

Up ahead, from where he knew their camp was situated, a thunderous **BOOM** rattled the very earth beneath his feet, nearly toppling him over like a drunkard. Barely taking the time to right himself, he kept moving forward, squinting in the inexplicable gloom to try and spot any treacherous roots in his path. He knew something was attacking the New Reapers, but he had no way of determining exactly what as even his senses picked up only muddled reishei signatures that covered far too much ground. Not even Kenpachi's blindingly bright power was entirely clear through the miasma, and that worried the medic more than anything else.

At last, he broke from the treeline, nearly bent double from his impromptu marathon. But the sight he was met with nearly froze him solid, simply beyond the immediate scope of his logic and coming straight from the depths of nightmares:

The New Reapers were scattered across the kilometer and a half long clearing, like a bomb had gone off in the middle of camp, and every single one was injured. A few were dead, either from shock or the wounds perforating their bodies. The barracks was nothing more than crushed kindling, a swathe of scorched dirt the only indication it had ever stood at all. Several Gillian Hollows were wrecking havoc, blasting off scarlet ceros in all directions even as the few Reapers that could fight managed to protect their brethren from the carnage. Quintinus was zipping around the battlefield, firing off innumerable arrows from his gold and black shikai bow while a splinter of wood the length of his forearm poked out from the front and back of his abdomen, only his Zanpakutos's power bolstering effect keeping him on his feet. Tatsuki was only barely managing to hold Keigo up, both of them drenched in blood and his sword arm dangling from an eviscerated shoulder that revealed the stained white of bone.

But, what proved to be the opus of it all, the grand gem on the crown of this hellish scene, was what hung overhead.

Easily large enough to cast the entire clearing into shadow, a truly enormous globe of gray and black material hovered in the air like a comet suspended in the moment before impact. Seething across its surface were countless Gillians, looking like scurrying ants in comparison to the unthinkable mass of the sphere. Emanating from it was the distorting reishei signature, warping those around it like a magnetic field interfering with the radio waves.

And worst of all, stretching from pole to pole, a simple, white mask glared down at all of them, like the face of some malevolent deity that had decided to squash them for its amusement.

The gargantuan Hollow possessed no limbs, but appropriately sized ceros were being fired off from any point of its circular body it desired, hardly requiring the effort to aim at its prey for the sheer size of the blasts. Minuscule pockmarks dotted its mask, indications of attacks made on it by either the Reapers of foes from the past; entirely ineffective whichever the case.

Even as the medic now stood there, an explosion blossomed at the very top of the Hollow, the sound of the detonation following the sight a split second later. Moments later, the large bulk of Kenpachi hurtled to the ground, trailing flames and smoke like a miniature rocket. Without resistance, he crashed into the ground with terrific force, creating a sizable crater around his unmoving body. In all the time Yoshi had known the behemoth of a man, he had never seen him as brutalized as he was now, let alone anything that could have so seriously injured the Kenpachi.

And then a voice of pure power and volume resonated against every molecule of his being, vibrating him so fiercely he wondered if he was _feeling_ the words more than actually hearing them.

" **BOTHERSOME SPECKS! YOU SQUIRM AND STRUGGLE AGAINST FORCES FAR BEYOND YOUR COMPREHENSION! BECOME ONE, AS YOU FEED THE UNTAMED DEVORADOR!** "

Before the space in front of the mask's left eye, a titanic cero began to form – of a magnitude not seen for generations of Soul Reapers. It would eradicate all of them, possibly even the stunned Kenpachi as well, and then this monstrous Hollow would have free reign to consume souls all across the Soul Society with impunity. Yoshi was the only New Reaper left unharmed and on his feet, and it fell solely to him to handle this crisis.

With far less fear than anyone would have suspected of him, the scrawny medic dashed to the largest open space directly beneath Devorador, utilizing the pseudo-shunpo the New Reapers had been slowly developing to arrive in seconds. Once situated, he squared his feet, clutched the hilt of his katana in one fist and craned his head back to glare at the planetoid Hollow that was threatening his adopted family.

"Hey! HEEEYYY!" He hollered as loud as he could, waving his free arm for emphasis. He knew full well that Devorador had no need to focus on him, but hard won experience had taught him that sentient Hollow's were usually quite vane and wouldn't require much cajoling to annoy. "You think you're so great! Try me, you over-inflated GASBAG!"

The words were harsh, and much more confrontational than he would normally have been comfortable with, but desperate times and all that. The enormous cero did indeed dwindle away, the only hint that Devorador had even heard him, and the eyes of any conscious Reaper also fell on their medic with either alarm or cold dread. Tatsuki would have ran to him if not for the dangerously pale form of her closest partner, and Kenpachi gritted his teeth as he tried to haul his body back into gear.

"If you think you can just crush us like bugs, then crush me! Come on! Crush me!"

It must have been a novel experience for the monolithic Hollow: a being no larger than any other soul, challenging it like he would a sports rival. Even the berserker had hardly given it pause, Kenpachi's ungodly strength just too overwhelmed by sheer size alone. But Yoshi's words were still insulting to the extreme for a being that had been regarded as a god by fellow Hollows, and he would enact his wrath without pity.

" **SACRILIDGE! DIE, GNAT!** " And then it was descending at a shocking speed, steam wafting from its base as the amount of friction it was generating heated the moisture in the air. At its approach, the ground began to tremble, as if in fear of the impending contact, dead and unconscious bodies rattling around like macabre beads on a drum. The few remaining Gillians toppled like shoddily built towers, rendered harmless due to their complete lack of defense against the blades of the Reapers closest by.

Tatsuki, still holding a barely awake Keigo tightly, lurched forward in an instinctive urge to save her friend, but the distance between them was too great and her own injuries would have prevented her from ever clearing it anyway. "Yoshi!" Her scream carried even over the rumble of Devorador's plummet, and the medic tore his eyes away from imminent death and met Tatsuki's across the devastated clearing. He was grim faced, but he allowed the slightest of smiles to lighten his features for her sake. In the instant before Devorador struck earth, he made to pull out his katana. "YOSHIARAAA!"

And then he was gone from sight as the enormous Hollow crushed into the ground with a bone jarring explosion of noise and force that threw up a cloud of loose dirt around it as it continued to push downwards. The world seemed to be ending with the all the noise, but it abated as Devorador slowed, slowed, and finally stopped, its impossible size all the more imposing now juxtaposed against the trees of the forest behind it. Its bottom pole had ground a good fifty meters into the earth, nearly a fifth of its body now buried out of sight.

After that calamitous sound barrage, the following silence was almost worse in its intensity. Tatsuki stared with open shock at where her comrade and friend had just met a horrific fate, tears threatening to stream down her blood caked cheeks. Keigo let out a low, keening noise, like a wounded animal as he felt the loss of the medic as deeply as she did, with the added guilt of having failed to prevent this latest death.

The battlefield was nearly silent in those following seconds, like the eye of a storm only much, much less safe. Then...

Another tremor ran through the ground, but this one was different than the one before it. To any Reapers that could sense reishei, an enormous well of power had unexpectedly appeared directly beneath Devorador, a brilliantly clear and overwhelming source in direct contrast to the Hollow's own warping signature. It was huge, and rising at a rate that felt inhuman and outright impossible for any one person or creature.

But then Devorador shuddered. Its whole frame shook with a sudden shift that had occurred from underneath it, and it was just as surprised as the Reapers as it began to rise, forcibly being lifted from the crater and pushed skywards. Though it must have weighed thousands of tons, it continued to ascend against its will.

When it had risen thirty meters, opening room between itself and the ground, ten very large, clawed, _monstrous_ digits hooked up from under it and gripped it on either side. When it had fully escaped the impact site, and everyone got a clear look underneath it, not a single soul was capable of forming words or even coherent thought very several long moments.

Hunched underneath Devorador, bent nearly double but slowly straightening, was a monster straight out of a Hollywood blockbuster. Humanoid in basic shape alone, it had deep green-gray flesh that was ridged and contoured like an alligator's; arms and legs that were so heavily muscled that they were as wide as city buses; a body that curved in a distinctly inhuman manner and sprouted a tapered tail; a reptilian face with a maw full of sword sized fangs; and crimson and black eyes that held nothing else but rage and fury.

With a screeching roar, the great beast fully straightened, successfully lifting the entire weight of Devorador above its head like a trophy before slamming it back down to earth with a powerful surge of its arms. Standing at its tallest, the monster was about a third as tall as the Hollow, but the unmistakable power and ferocity that was rolling off of it stopped anyone from assuming it wasn't just as powerful.

"Yoshiara turned into Godzilla," Keigo murmured, mind on autopilot.

Tatsuki nodded weakly. "As good as."

Devorador wasn't just about to take this unprecedented violation of the natural order lying down. With a roar of its own, the Hollow rose back up on its own power, firing off a series of cero blasts as it did. The majority of the beams connected with Kaiju-Yoshiara, but seemed mostly only able to enrage him further. Lunging forward, the titan slashed with his claws and raked deep furrows in Devorador's rocky surface, eliciting the first cry of pain the Hollow had made in centuries. A larger, more concentrated cero fired out from its mask, scoring a hit on Yoshiara's shoulder that knocked him back a step and burnt the skin.

In retaliation, a yellow glow built up inside the Kaiju's throat before a beam of his own ripped out from between serrated jaws and tore a trench along Devorador's already injured flank, crossing over the claw marks and searing the exposed, softer tissue underneath as well as obliterating any Gillian caught in the way. Spinning to put the injury on the side facing away from Yoshiara, Devorador rushed forward and rammed into him, succeeding in knocking him off his feet and crashing to the ground before firing another volley of ceros into the monstrous form.

Enduring the onslaught, Yoshiara rolled onto his front in a move that was far more graceful than should have been possible, got his feet underneath him, and sprang backwards with speed no creature his size should possess. Colliding bodily with Devorador didn't prove advantageous a move as it hardly budged, and then another cero fired point blank to burn at his gut.

Screeching in pain and anger, Yoshiara reared a fist back and pummeled it into the Hollow's mask, failing to deal any apparent damage. Undaunted, the kaiju kept at it, rocketing punch after punch into any surface of his enemy he could reach, ignoring the ceros that were being fired back in return. The waves of concussive energy swept down and knocked against the awestruck Reapers, even staggering a few. The heat was also mounting, forcing many to vacate the area, if the two titans battling to the death wasn't already an incentive.

A proportionately loud _crrck_ signaled that a single crack had appeared along the blank expanse of Devorador's mask. Without missing a beat, Yoshiara altered his next punch by extending the fingers of that hand so the claws sank up to the second knuckle in the weakened area. A watery, black liquid squirted from the wound, accompanied by a bellow of pain that seemed to be equal parts agony and outrage.

This time, the cero that took Yoshiara straight in the face was a much deeper red than all the ones before, and was noticeably larger in diameter. Whatever upgraded version it was, it had a much more potent effect on the Reaper turned kaiju, blasting him back across the clearing and sent tumbling into the forest, entire trees simply disintegrating under the weight. Not letting up, the planetoid Hollow began bombarding the new open area with a barrage of the higher quality ceros, firing them at a blistering pace and obscuring its enemy under debris, dirt and explosions.

It was enough destructive power to level a city or cremate a Vasto Lorde in their tracks. The New Reapers were fleeing to the other side of their clearing, unable to withstand the intense spirit pressure that was building up around the colossus. Only Kenpachi remained, once again on his feet; watching without expression the spot Yoshiara had been before the onslaught. Something long forgotten began to stir in his small eyes - a memory of battles long since fought.

A beam of yellow energy blasted out from the smokescreen, impacting with insufficient force against Devorador. A moment later a second beam shot out, then a third, all of them failing to put a dent in the Hollow's defenses. It seemed that Yoshiara's attempts had been for nothing until his impossibly large form exploded straight up into the air, propelled by a much larger beam of energy.

Airborne for only a few seconds, he came hurtling back down, flipping over so he was falling headfirst, roar heralding his approach. Devorador rotated so its mask was looking up at the Kaiju, a move that proved to be its undoing.

Absorbing the ceros fired his way, Yoshiara fired one last beam of his own, hitting the still gushing injury on the massive mask. For the second that Devorador was stunned by pain, Yoshiara closed the distance and landed on that same spot with mouth open wide. Clampinng his jaw shut, the Kaiju Reaper sunk the claws of his hands and feet into the mask as well, adhering him to the Hollow like a particularly vicious tick.

Devorador was enraged beyond anything it had experienced in hundreds of years, rage blinding it to anything but slaughtering the Reaper. Gathering up a huge amount of reishei, it prepared to unleash the mother of all ceros, vaporizing the monstrous soul down to his bones. The entire surface of the Hollow pulsed crimson, any remaining Gillians howling before being forcibly siphoned into the gathering energy pool. It promised to be an attack that would leave a far bigger scar on the land than that which marked the Seireitei's grave.

But Yoshiara wasn't about to gown down without a fight. Though his body was bleeding and scorched, he began channeling all of his own energy. It was obviously far less than what Devorador was capable of, but it would hopefully be enough to accomplish what he had in mind.

There was a pause in the world as the two behemoths gathered themselves for the final push, and it was the Hollow that acted first. With a primal roar of fury, it unleashed a monumental wave of energy onto the defenseless Reaper, searing the very air with its intensity. It would only fire outward when the Kaiju Reaper was dead and destroyed, so he was the only thing standing between the New Reapers and extinction. Yoshiara held on, enduring the suffering of his flesh charring as his energy continued to build up for those last, precious seconds before he decided that it was enough.

His beam was entirely contained by his jaws, directed into the weeping injury. Unlike the rest of the Hollow, its insides were significantly less armored than it exterior. The beam pushed into the Hollow as a sword does flesh, tearing through the inner workings without remorse or leniency. After only a few seconds, the golden shaft burst through the other side of Devorador's body, spearing it straight through its center and eliciting a geyser of the brackish liquid to spray out the exit wound.

The massive Hollow continued to incinerate Yoshiara for a few moments longer, but the devastation finally caught up with it and, accompanied by a noise like a mourning whale, it crashed down to earth, red energy vanishing. With the grounding of the titan, Yoshiara was knocked free and toppled free and fell to the side, limp. There was another, deafening silence as the world seemed to recoil in shock. Nobody could even think of words to describe what they had just seen, and so remained speechless.

Slowly, in accommodation with its enormous size, Devorador the Untamed began to dissolve - its spiritual essence blanketing the land and providing it with a sudden surge of life and vigor. In one last irony, the Hollow that could have consumed the planet was giving it life instead. The great scars upon the land rapidly healed themselves, tree sproutlings sprang up from shattered stumps, and the injuries of the New Reapers partially recovered, delivering them from Death's door for the moment.

And the colossal beast that was Yoshiara clambered back to its feet, grievous injuries fully visible to the souls on the ground. Looking at the nearly gone form of his enemy, Yoshiara bowed his head for a mere second before throwing it back and unleashing one last roar of triumph, proudly raising his arms and claiming the victory. With the threat passed, the Kaiju's body turned an opaque gold, coalescing and shrinking down, down down until finally resolving into the regularly sized Yoshiara as he tiredly slid his katana back into its sheathe.

He didn't bare the same wounds as his monstrous form had, but he was bleeding from several gashes and angry red burns stretched up his arms and neck. Nevertheless, he was smiling when he limped up to Kenpachi, Tatsuki and a slightly recovered Keigo arriving at the same time. The former captain was beaming at the healer.

"You did good, runt. Pretty damn good."

And that was worth all the injuries just to hear. Arisawa spoke next, awe clear in her voice. "That was beyond awesome. When the hell did you attain Bankai without us noticing?"

Yoshiara looked, of all things, confused by her words. "Bankai?" Then a much more mischievous smile crossed his face. "Oooh, you thought _that_ was my Bankai."

The implication was clear, and it properly stunned the two senior Reapers. Kenpachi laughed raucously. "Eh, Tatsuki! Looks like you've got some competition for my title!"

Yoshiara ducked his head in amusement, allowing himself a moment of revelry before making his way towards the other New Reapers. There were wounds to be tended, and his protection of his family was not yet complete.

Just another day in the company of Zaraki Kenpachi, really.


	10. Name (2)

'Funny' was not a word Tatsuki applied to many situations nowadays, or any in the past several decades for that matter. She had, admittedly, always been a bit on the severe side and would usually be the person to cut a joke short rather than instigate one. She usually took it upon herself to be the mature center of a group, though that approach often ended up being an insult to others rather than a support. It could be argued that she was so serious most of the time because she unconsciously wanted to be the funny or lively one but was too afraid of rejection to take that path (these arguments were almost always interrupted by Tatsuki herself as she slammed her elbow into the nose of whoever was trying to make such an idiotic presumption).

So naturally, when Keigo wandered away from their group and then suddenly vanished from her senses, she did not find the situation at all humorous despite the annoyance she had been harboring against him prior to his departure. She barely hesitated before setting out after him, heading in the last direction she had felt his spiritual signature from at a steady jog, katana held at the ready.

It was probably unwise to go by herself when there could very well be a powerful enemy lurking just out of sight, but when it came to Keigo she felt that it was her role alone to protect him, as he did for her. They had survived for years with absolutely nothing but each other, and that level of trust and dependency had shaped them in ways neither would ever had believed remotely possible.

The spattering of blood was starkly visible under the moonlight, even after the rain had washed away most of it into the sucking mud. She almost expected to see Keigo's body on the other side of the rise, but the ground was mercifully bare. Close examination turned up soggy impressions of footprints, human footprints, so she deliberately followed the wavering trail they led her on, glancing around at the dangerously open landscape every few seconds.

For an entire hour she traced the faint tracks, picking up her pace when they started to get more and more washed out. The rain water must have come down from a slight incline and eroded the tracks faster than the others because soon she no longer had anything to follow. Breathing quickly now, she tried to determine which direction he would have gone in, but there was no way to tell, and a wrong guess would be fatal.

"Shit, shit, shit, shit," she cursed under her breath, jerking her head about to try and catch a glimpse of her partner on the horizon, but met only with familiar failure. A heavy feeling was beginning to swell up inside her, forcing all other emotions out as shear panic began to infect her mind. She couldn't think, couldn't reason, and kept envisioning Keigo's lifeless body in differing states of mutilation or...or...

She threw her head back to scream-

 _"Now is precisely the_ wrong _time to throw a tantrum, idiot."_

Reacting without conscious thought, she drew her blade and wheeled about to try and find whatever had snuck up on her, unshed tears now falling freely in her distraction.

 _"Oh don't even start with that! You don't exactly have time to spare on theatrics right now, yeah?"_

More fearful than ever, Tatsuki refused to let her guard down and kept swiveling about to ensure nothing attacked from her blind spot. "Show your face, Hollow, so I can cut in half!"

An exasperated sigh, like a long suffering parent with an intentionally difficult child.

 _"What did I_ just _say? But I suppose it's really my fault, since I believed you were smart enough to skip past the introductory stage. Fine, FINE! We'll stick with boring old tradition and do this the tedious way just so I can hold your hand."_

Tatsuki didn't know what to make of that, nor of entire world seemingly to fold in on itself so she was falling down into the crease. But...she wasn't really falling – she was gliding forward so fast that direction became immaterial. Velocity too seemed to have taken a hike because she didn't feel the acceleration at all. She was stationary while shooting off at unimaginable speeds.

Whatever insane Willy Wonka ride she was on ended abruptly, as though it had never happened, and she was/had been standing off to the side in a...a...Grecian open air courtyard, complete with marble pillars, fruitful ivy and inches-deep pool in the center that gurgled playfully. Everything was bright and vibrant, despite there not being a sun present, and she was the only soul there.

...except for the enormous woman lounging on some cushions with a goblet of wine and a blood drenched spear held casually across her lap.

In this case, 'enormous' didn't mean she looked like viking woman in a Wagner opera. 'Enormous' as in she must have been a good ten feet without heels and had the musculature and build of an Olympic swimmer, runner and martial artist all in one. Her skin was that smooth bronze tone that models liked to get sprayed on for shoots in Caribbean sets, and appeared flawlessly healthy save for the dozen or so mismatched scars that traced lines along her exposed skin, no two similar in shape or severity. She was wearing a defiantly immodest outfit of silk, leather and metal that would have looked right at home on the set of _Xena_.

Her dark hair hair was actually much like Tatsuki's was, albeit much longer and lazily tied together at uneven intervals to keep it out of her face. Her eyes were golden -literally made of gold- and a pink stripe of scar tissue streaked from temple to temple from an old injury that must have ruined her original eyes to the point of needing these new ones.

In short, she was terrifyingly beautiful, and entirely unconcerned by it.

"Alright Arisawa, we finally meet face-to-face. I would rather we have just settled this outside, but I guess some people just need the full package for it to sink in. Now, who am I?"

Tatsuki opened her mouth and said absolutely nothing. She tried hard to remember what words were and how to string them together in meaningful enough way that would be enough to express exactly how confused she was, but not a sound escaped her lips. At least she didn't squeak.

"Not exactly starting us off on a sterling note," the woman grumbled as she took a sip from her goblet, directing her words to the crimson liquid within. She made a sound that would have been a _tsk_ if she had opened her jaw. "Alright, really  really start at the basics." Without a single extraneous movement, she readied and threw her spear in a single heartbeat.

Tatsuki saved herself through instinct alone, spinning on one heel to avoid the bloodied weapon by a margin so close that it cut a sliver into her shirt. It was at about this moment that she realized that her sword was gone. Bending her knees into a Karate stance, she readied herself for the next attack, strangely unsurprised to find that the mystery woman already had her spear back in hand like it had never left it.

"Try that again and I'll smash your face into the dirt!" She snarled with venom, all of her bottled up emotions transforming into rage towards this arrogant and condescending witch who would so casually threaten her life. It was a relief to have a definite target in sight, and she desperately concentrated wholly on that to fend off the fear and near hysteria that had been threatening to consume her just moments before.

"While I appreciate the introduction of actual conversation, you are approaching this entirely incorrectly. What good will fighting me do for Keigo?"

Tatsuki knew the barb was aimed to get a rise out of her, she KNEW it, but she still felt her face flush with anger and a growl rise up through clenched teeth. "The sooner I beat you to a pulp, the sooner I can find him!"

She threw herself towards the woman and wasn't quite able to follow the train of events that ended with her pinned to the ground by the woman's sandaled foot. Now standing up, the woman looked even more imposing than at rest, her muscles tensed like a true combatant's but her posture relaxed; a mountain lion preparing for the lunge.

"So eager to face everything head on and dominate everything through strength alone," the woman tutted admonishingly. She nudged Tatsuki's cheek with the haft of her spear while once again taking a sip of wine. "Is there no other way to engage an enemy, I wonder?"

Tatsuki had been futilely attempting to force the foot off from her chest and wasn't ready when the weight vanished. Thrashing for a second, she was on her feet and eyeing the mocking woman before the other had taken two steps, tauntingly exposing her back to the fuming New Reaper. It was an obvious ploy and one she wasn't about to willingly test, so instead she took a few steps back. Unarmed as she was, the advantage from the distance obviously went to the spear wielder, but Tatsuki knew that sometimes a second or two of breathing room was better than an easy opening.

"That wasn't as rhetorical as it sounded, dear. Feel free to chime in any time."

If she could get her talking, maybe she could learn something that would help her get out of this bizarre arena and back to find Keigo. "You don't seem to mind using your strength to knock me around."

"Ah, but am I really? Is this all just my own power, or is there something else that is allowing me to play with you like an angry kitten? If you think this is a matter of brawn, then you might as well surrender now and be done with it."

A fresh surge of anger burned in Tatsuki's veins like a shot of adrenaline. She would never give up just because she seemed to be outgunned!

As though she had spoken the thought aloud, the amazonian woman turned back around to pierce the tomboy with a scrutiny that peeled away her outer layer and left her core exposed. "So you would dash yourself against the unbreakable stone in hopes of miraculously shattering it? You would throw away your life just so you would go down fighting? That is admirable, in a stupid medieval sort of way, but what does it gain you, or anyone for that matter? Would the battle be won? Would your loved ones be saved from the invincible threat?"

Taking one long step, the woman swung her spear horizontally, aiming to take Tatsuki's legs out from under her. Rather than jump over the shaft, the martial artist lifted one foot and blocked the sweep with the sole of her boot. The impact stung like a brand, but she did her best to ignore it as she stomped down on the spear, tearing it free from the woman's grasp. Diving onto it, she skinned the knuckles of her fingers against the stone tile floor but managed to get a grip on the weapon and came back up with it clutched tightly in both fists.

"The hard steel and wood of battle is indeed a powerful choice," the woman intoned as casually as if they were talking over tea, "but a poor one when the opponent is impervious to physical harm." To illustrate her point, she stood obligingly still as Tatsuki jabbed with the stolen weapon at her leg in an attempt to cripple. The bloody tip of the spear glanced off her flesh as though it was the one made from metal, leaving not a trace behind save a thin streak of blood.

Tatsuki gaped as she backpedaled, still pointing the useless of weapon at the Amazon. She tried to formulate some other method of offense, but the woman was striding toward her and forcing her back, back, back until she was flush against the wall of the courtyard and only separated by the length of the spear.

"That's more like it: caution. Very rarely does some well placed caution go astray." She leaned forward so the keen edge of the spear was pressed against her abdomen, honey hued skin not even denting under the pressure. "Tell me, little one, what option do you have left now that your only means of attack has been negated? Is this where you go out in a blaze of glory?"

Tatsuki was furious, though she couldn't tell if it was at the woman or herself anymore. Here she was, in an unwinnable fight, and Keigo was still out there somewhere, dying or already dead. The idea that she was too late was horrific and the stuff of nightmares, but she was as unable to change it as she was of beating this indestructible woman. Her strength wasn't enough, and Keigo and the others were going to suffer for it.

She screwed her eyes shut and clenched her teeth, hands trembling. No no no no no no NO! It- it couldn't end like this! She was supposed to always be there to protect her growing family, to fight alongside Keigo and make sure he didn't get his stupid face into trouble without her to pull him right out of it.

But she didn't have the strength...she wasn't strong enough...this woman had shown her that she was just a child playing at a warrior. A nuisance under foot that could do little more than make noise.

...this woman...

As her anger abandoned her, brutal reality took its place. She knew that she could no longer protect those closest to her the way she was; always rushing to meet a challenge and ready to hack at it until she was the victor. Her pride was not worth the lives of the New Reapers, of Kenpachi's, of Keigo's...

The spear hit the ground with a clang and hollow slap as the steel and wooden ends bounced against the tiles before resting inertly, abandoned. Craning her head back to look the woman in the eye, Tatsuki was ashamed to feel her lips trembling from soundless sobs but steeled herself for what she now knew without a doubt she must do.

"Would you...would you please protect them? I'll give you anything you want, if you promise to protect them where I can't. I...I-" She couldn't get anymore words out, and now she couldn't see past the tears she was too ashamed to wipe away.

The woman looked Tatsuki in the eye for several quiet seconds. She was seeing straight through her, seeing the heart that meant every word she spoke and beat only for others.

Then, like a miracle on a battlefield, a soft smile curved her lips from a fierce line and she was practically radiant with beautiful kindness. "To throw down the Spear of War is to make yourself defenseless; to shed the Armor of Pride is to make yourself vulnerable." She caressed Tatsuki's cheek with sisterly fondness, gently whisking away the tears. "But to don a Wreath of Humility requires strength far beyond that of the physical, and to accept from the Chalice of Mercy," she offered her goblet and Tatsuki willingly took the large cup and downed a swallow of the sweet wine, surprised by the warmth that blossomed within her from it, "is no weakness, but a victory all its own. One side balances the other, and both are imperative elements of war and battle. There is a time for all of them, and it requires a brave mind and soul to discern when and where."

Tatsuki gazed at the powerful and wondrous woman with a dawning respect and admiration. "That was all...a test?"

The woman smiled a little wider. "Of course it was you little shit. You didn't think your first lesson with your Zanpakuto was going to be straight forward, did you?"

Somehow, the knowledge didn't surprise her as much as it should. For all their differences, for all the friction they could generate, she could now clearly feel the link that they shared; the bond that joined them as one.

"Now, with the two of us finally working together, it shouldn't be too hard to track down our Soul Mates and save their ungrateful asses."

Tatsuki needed a moment to process that.

"Wait, what!? SOUL MATES!?"


	11. Shadows (1)

_Zaraki strode with all purpose and no reason through the murky gray landscape, nodachi carelessly propped against his shoulder. Some sort of fog or mist was curtaining the ground, swirling around his legs as he went but never parting and affording him a glimpse of the ground that barely even felt there at all. This, for some reason, did not concern him, nor did the fact that he had no idea how he had gotten there or for what purpose. He knew, right down to his bones, that he was right where he needed to be._

 _Ahead of him, resolving out of the clouded air like a phantasm, a figure materialized. Standing much, much shorter than the Kenpachi, the man nonetheless held himself with a bearing that held not a single trace of hesitation or fear. This was a being whose pride practically wafted off of him, and had no trouble backing that up. This was not a soldier or a guardian, but a warrior, and one who was born and raised in conflict and bloodshed._

 _Though he was looking straight at him, Kenpachi could only make out vague generalities, like he was glimpsing him from the corner of his eye. The main impression he got was "blue". Whatever this man was wearing, it was blue and nothing but. It stretched from his neck down to his knees, which, even though mostly obscured by the mist, he could just make out the tops of white boots. The pink around his chest were his arms, bare up to the shoulder, and long, white gloves encased his hands and half his forearms. His face little more than a blur, the sharp lines of his features only barely managing to broadcast the scowl of annoyance he seemed to be wearing. To top it all off (quite literally in this case), he had one of the dumbest hair cuts Zaraki had ever seen: coal black, and angling upward to make a flame shape that added a nearly a full foot to his height._

 _Heh._

 _A low, garbled noise. Was the guy talking? Well, to the Kenpachi, ANY talking was already TOO MUCh talking!_

 _Without preamble, he swung his sword down in a terrific arc that would have sliced any building created clean in half. The warrior moved so fast as to seem a blur of pure speed, shifting to his left to dodge the attack handily and using this new angle to throw a hook into the berserker's ribs._

 _Kenpachi would have laughed at the tactic, but then the blow landed and he was thrown through the air like a doll. Momentarily stunned by the unbelievable force, he blinked in disbelief...then grinned widely as he realized that this was someone who could really dish it out. Not bothering to land on his feet, he hit the ground in a shoulder roll and stabbed his nodachi into the ground to halt his momentum, dragged along for a momentum before it did._

 _The Warrior was upon him in an instant, throwing his fist forward to crack Kenpachi in the jaw with what must have been enough power to knock the head right off of anybody else. Jerking his face away, he braced his feet under him and wrenched his sword forward from the ground in a back hand grip that came very close to severing the Warrior's arm. Springing upwards, Kenpachi flipped his grip and brought it down in a meteoric strike that succeeded in sending a tremor through the battlefield. Warrior skipped back a few steps before launching at him through the air, feet hardly seeming to move._

 _Not particularly desiring to meet those fists again, Kenpachi swung to intercept the incoming punch. The best part? Flesh and steel actually managed to block each other like equals! Hot damn!_

 _They traded swings and blows, making a mockery of any notion that a martial artist couldn't take on a swordsman in open combat. Warrior even seemed to be keeping his end up, not flagging under the monstrous strength of the last Shinigami and dealing as good as he got. If this guy actually existed, he was probably considered just as much of a monster as Zaraki was in the Seireitei. How appropriate then that they would face each other without need for restraint or rules._

 _Leaning around a snap kick, Kenpachi punched warrior with his sword hand while the other grabbed a fistful of the blue singlet (or whatever, he wasn't too concerned about accuracy). With a heave, he swung the much smaller fighter up over his head and down into the ground on his other side, denting the uncertain landscape from the force. Without show, Kenpachi brought his long sword up to drive it down into the martial artist and was delighted when the man caught the blade between both palms, diverting it to the side and allowing him to ram a fist into Zaraki's chin followed by a half-roundhouse kick that put some space between them._

 _Warrior stood up straight, wiping a blurred hand along his lips where, presumably, Kenpachi had drawn blood. Now, the berserk swordsman wasn't one to subscribe to the idea of empathy, but he was picking up a rather unmistakable sense of anger and excitement emanating from the diminutive opponent. Seemed he was starting to get into this fight as well._

 _Then something rather unexpected happened: the Warrior threw his head back and howled, the muted sound still slightly audibly over the haze surrounding them. A brutish gale of wind knocked against Kenpachi, warming his clammy skin where the atmosphere did not. Again, he was detecting something from the martial artist, but this was pure power being unleashed through a mortal instrument, threatening the world around it with reckless abandon. A intense flash of light later and the Warrior's hair had turned a brilliant gold that nearly broke through the unknown barrier around them, making itself a beacon of strength of will and body._

 _So, this was the guy going all out? Kenpachi could think of no better response than too do likewise. He reached up and curled his fingers around the eyepatch he hadn't even realized was there but was simultaneously unsurprised by, and ripped it free from his head. A fountain of power and killing intent burst from him, his body welcoming the surge with ease. He cackled aloud, thrilled beyond mere words to find someone who could finally match him at his peak. He spun his sword about once before gripping it with both palms, sinking down into a ready stance that Yamamoto probably never thought he'd remember._

 _This was it! They both loosed their war cries and launched themselves at the other, living embodiments of conflict._

)()()()()()()()()()(

Kenpachi awoke with a start, brain still telling him he was in a fight to the death. He jerkily sat up and looked around the fire at the slumbering New Reapers and the one on watch, mind catching up with him.

"Dammit!"

Keigo looked over from where he was drawing in the dirt with a charred stick from the fire. "Something up?"

"No," Zaraki grunted, falling back onto his bedroll. "Was just in the middle of a really good dream is all."

Keigo silently vowed never to inquire what a 'good dream' constituted for the Kenpachi.


	12. Shadows (2 Part 1)

_Somewhere far back in his mind, he noted that this wasn't like last time. He still walked out onto a mist-laden battlefield with all sound suspiciously muted and dulled and the light an omnipresent glow that came from nowhere. But now he wore the robes and coat of a Captain of the 13 Court Guards Squad, and his power felt different than before; more controlled despite the immensity of it and focused through his blade rather than carelessly leaking out around him. But these details were barely given any mind as he focused on the man striding toward him._

 _Again, even though every detail was smudged like it was viewed through a fogged over window, it wasn't exactly hard to tell the color of the man's apparel; an egg yolk yellow jumpsuit with flapping white cape and a red boots/gloves combo would be pretty fucking hard to miss. And judging by the sheen at the top of his head, he was completely bald on top of that (Kenpachi experienced a brief pang, though his mind was in no position to analyze it further.)_

 _There was..._ something _about him, something that made the back of Kenpachi's neck prickle in anticipation. It wasn't killing intent, nor some great aura of power; something quiet and wordless resonated from this bald man and gave him an air of such extreme danger that Zaraki's rarely exercised sense of self-preservation began to kick in._

 _And then he promptly banished it again._

 _Laughing like a maniac, the former captain sprinted forward and brought his sword in for a horizontal slash. Banana man hopped back to avoid disembowelment, posture relaxed and casual as can be. Kenpachi swung again and again, trying to at least nick the bastard, but it was like trying to slap smoke. He was rapidly losing whatever cool he might have had and was hacking harder and harder, like a lumberjack attempting to cleave through a stone pillar._

 _He threw out an obscene taunt, but his own ears couldn't decipher the words and his brain was otherwise occupied so it proved a useless gesture. The bald sonuvabitch hadn't even attempted to fight back yet, not even lifting his arms into a defensive posture. Well if that wasn't just a kick to the balls..._

 _Letting the momentum of one dodged swing spin him around on his heel, Kenpachi grabbed the hilt of his sword with his free hand and doubled the force and speed of the followup in an instant. This seemed to surprise the ridiculously outfitted man as he only gaped in astonishment before the blade contacted with his cheek. Somehow, the rules of reality were violently stuffed into a basement with a deranged gimp and given the full work-over because the lengthy sword acted as a club rather than a cutting instrument and merely knocked the unknown fighter back a step._

 _He seemed to take stock of the situation, muttered a few, serious words to himself, and then punched Kenpachi Zaraki in the jaw harder than he had ever been hit in his life._

 _He might have blacked out from the unbelievable power and pain, but his body acted without instruction and he landed on his feet thirty yards away from where he had just been standing. His jaw was definitely cracked, probably fractured, and another one of those to the wrong place could disable Kenpachi faster than Kurotsuchi's shikai. But god DAMN that was a rush! Who'd have though somebody could contain so much raw power without benefit of being dead or not entirely human?! This was starting to look up, even if he was facing another fist-fighter in this arena, and he wasn't about to back out now because of a little boo-boo!_

 _Reaffirming a two-handed grip, he squared himself in a basic kendo pose and brought his nodachi up in front of his face in preparation. The strange bastard, who had earned the nickname Punch Man, was giving Kenpachi an odd look, from what little of his face was visible through the sheen of whateverthefuck. He probably hadn't expected him to get back up from that one blow, but the joke was on him because Zaraki only gave up when he had literally lost more blood than should be present in his body and he finally collapsed insensate. Granted, this had only happened twice before, but those were still the only occasions where he could actually say for certain that he hadn't_ won _, so it was as close as he was to get._

 _...hmm? Oh, yes, the fight._

 _Deciding against sacrificing his footing, he gave a taunting beckon to Punch Man, smiling widely for emphasis. This didn't appear to enrage him, per se, but he did obligingly break into a run at the towering berserker, legs and arms pumping mightily to achieve an impressive speed in no time at all. Whatever he did next, it would probably hit like an espada, so it wouldn't behoove the swordsman to devise a one-second plan._

 _What the hell, everything was fun at least once, right?_

 _Opting out of a straight up offensive, Kenpachi waited until the distance between them was nearly closed before bringing the sword down in a diagonal slash. Apparently he now warranted some caution because the bald man turned his run into a slide and pivoted his body to the side and lent back enough to avoid the arc of the blade. Capitalizing on this drastic shift, Zaraki lashed out with a dinner plate sized hand and grabbed the other man's head by his face. With one arm crossed over the other, he knew that he didn't have the greatest range of options at the moment so he spun around in a one-eighty and hurled the spandex garbed powerhouse like a discus._

 _Taking off after him like a particularly blood-crazed dog, Zaraki reared his sword arm back and thrust it out to intercept Punch Man as he fell. This plan was shut down immediately as Punch Man -upside down, in midair and traveling at speeds exceeding fifteen kilometers an hour- snapped both palms against the long blade and stopped it dead. In the next instant he had landed back on solid ground, inexplicably managing to plant his feet beneath him before he used his hold on the nodachi and his bent posture to catapult Kenpachi over him and into a much rougher reunion with the earth._

 _Shaking the little spots of light from his vision, Kenpachi reached up to rub his eyes, idly taking note that his eyepatch was indeed absent. At some point in the insane melee, he had come to the conclusion that he was as he had been during the final day of the Thousand Year Blood War, with his potential freshly unlocked and his Zanpakuto awakened at last. Why he had taken this form was anyone's guess, but he wasn't about to turn down the chance to finally test the limits of his new power!_

 _Shoving off from the ground, he rolled his neck to sort out the kinks. Punch Man was standing stock still, regarding him with a curious look, and unwisely giving the behemoth of a man ample time to regroup. Whoever he was, he probably didn't fight for a profession. He was also far, far stronger than he was letting on. In the singular attack he had thrown, Kenpachi had found a power that was being restrained to a ridiculous degree, until it was barely a representation of his true strength. If they continued to fight at this level, it would be nothing but a waste of both their time, and a failure on his part to ensure that nothing had been held back._

 _Very well, if they needed to raise this a notch, he was perfectly willing to acquiesce. Actually, he might as well just blow the bar off its damn housing! Lifting his nodachi up before him, he gave his opponent a toothy, manic grin, and spoke words that cut through the haze that enveloped them._

 _"Drink, Nozarashi!"_


	13. Suspension

Keigo was on his back, awkwardly splayed out from where the concussive blast had thrown him and he hadn't yet bothered to get up from. His clothes were steaming ever so slightly, and a good patch of his face bore a sore red hue that was as uncomfortable as it looked. His ears were ringing and he could taste copper on the back of his tongue. Despite all this, the problem that was most concerning to him wasn't even life threatening. Well...not immediately at any rate.

A face entered his swimming vision, and he wasn't too displeased to see it. Blonde, chin length hair that was crudely trimmed at the edges; acid green eyes that spoke more words than were usually volunteered; small, chapped lips that were scrunched in a frown of agitation; a thin, angled strip of bone-like material that ran from the bridge of the nose and straight up into the hairline until reaching the base of the neck on the other side of the head. Her name was Irha, and she was an Arrancar.

"Get UP you useless twat-waffle, he'll be back any second!"

One he'd just so happened to have struck up a very unforeseen and equally tenuous partnership with.

Allowing himself to be roughly pulled back to his feet, he drew an arm across his face, wiping away some of the sweat and blood that was stinging his eyes. "I am open to ideas."

She shot him a withering glare. "Aren't _you_ supposed to be the big and powerful Soul Reaper come to wipe us Hollows out?"

"Technically," he raised a finger in a professorial manner while she yanked him along a path beneath the gargantuan roots of one of the crystalline trees of the Menos Forrest, "that order no longer exists."

"Didn't stop you from acting the part," she threw over her shoulder, not even sparing him a glance as she tried to pin-point where their attacker had gone. "He seemed to think you were as good as the real thing, so why shouldn't I?"

"Because you have manners and a sense of hospitality?" Keigo tried for light and casual, but came of sounding snarky and distracted. He was trying to divide his attention between scanning for the titanic Hollow that had been harassing them and observing his unprecedented companion. He took a moment to look down and reaffirm that his right hand and her left were still stuck together by a glowing mucus like substance that had hardened to the point of rivaling steel and had suppressed their spirit pressures to about nothing. Catching her punch had seemed like the best idea at the time; there was no way he could have known that other Hollow had been sneaking up on him...

"You wish. I just need to find someplace relatively safe so I can hack your arm off and be rid of your dead weight."

"Or, alternatively, we can find a way to get this stuff off and then properly introduce ourselves. I know which option I prefer." He ducked under an overhang that she had barely needed to stoop to avoid.

"Yeah, well, you clearly have a bias on the matter, so your input is suspect at best." She gave her bound arm a jerk that nearly sent Keigo nose first into the dirt. She gave a single bark of laughter at that. He scowled but said nothing, just reaching out to take hold of her shoulder and bring her run to a halt. She whipped about as best their situation would allow, curse ready on her lips before he clapped the same hand over her mouth and gestured with his head toward where she had been about to lead them.

Her eyes tracked in that direction and gratifyingly widened in surprise as she realized that the tree she had been meaning to duck around was in fact the foot and leg of the being they were presently avoiding. At least fifteen meters tall, it was a rival for the Menos of the land in terms of height, but far superior in savagery and power. With a build not unlike that of a mutant gorilla, razor sharp spines up and down its slightly luminescent body, feet that dwarfed a minivan, arms and hands that were proportionately far too large and a jaw that could open to about a hundred and fifty degrees, it was a horror show incarnate. To top of the list of lovely attributes, it didn't care if it ate a soul or a hollow, so long as it was satisfied.

And the funny thing was that this guy still wasn't Keigo's main problem.

Irha shot him a scathing glare, demanding he remove his hand. He did so, and she continued to glare. She apparently wanted something but he had no clear idea what so he just looked past to her massive creature that hadn't yet spotted them. She went a little red in the face at being ignored and grabbed him by the jaw so she could put her nose to his and glare full force into his eyes.

She was trying quite hard to transmit some nonverbal message or command, but he was slightly distracted by the thin fingers cupping under his chin. She was a spitfire that could rival Tatsuki on one of her bad days and held the equivalent power necessary to effortlessly level three city blocks with a single cero.

And what concerned him the most right then was that he had fallen head over heels for her in the few minutes he'd known her.

The colossal beast roared and lunged toward them.

He wondered if he would survive introducing her to Kenpachi and the others.


	14. Bridge

**AN:** _You know what I never thought I'd be doing when I started this Kenpachi Zaraki centered story? Writing a romance scene between Keigo and an arrancar. Fanfiction is a dangerous tool indeed..._

 _The song is "Hotel California Acoustic Version" from the "Hits of the Eagles (Backing Tracks)" album._

 _Doesn't this site prohibit song-fics...?_

)()()()()()()()()()(

Irha felt ridiculous.

Completely and unreservedly ridiculous.

At least, that was the extent of her opinion that she'd voice to Fuuka. Deep down - _ **deeeep down**_ \- she was blushing harder than she probably ever had in life.

Somehow, the creepily resourceful girl had gotten her hands on a western style dress - in her size no less. It was a pale red in the middle with the color darkening as it rose and lowered. The straps that ran over her shoulders crossed over themselves as they wound down her otherwise bare lower back. One side had been ventilated with an angled slit that ran perilously high up to her thigh, granting her a bit of much needed mobility to cope with the heels she was adjusting poorly to. Fuuka and another female member of the New Reapers (no matter how hard she tried, she had utterly failed to discover who had come up with that particular moniker) had cleaned and combed her hair with the air of doctors treating a lost cause and then slapped on some lip gloss and a touch of charcoal based liner. Seriously, where had they found this dress!?

Annoyed and trying to hide her discomfort in such dressy attire, she exited the women's barracks and walked with painstakingly measured steps to the clearing where the Reapers congregated during the day but was usually empty at this time of night. Rounding a corner of the ramshackle armory, she noted that the main fire had been lit, as well as a half dozen head height torches that were stuck into the ground around the circular area. Easing warily into the light, she glanced around to try and spot anybody that might be nearby. Well, she found them...

Sitting in chairs situated against the inwards facing wall of the armory sat four of the most powerful members of the New Reapers, and they all held instruments to her mounting dread. Tatsuki was fiddling with the head of her guitar, a rough but well loved piece that a grateful soul had gifted to her after she had saved his adopted family from bandits ten years back. Quintinus held a guitar of his own make, boldly decorated with a Quincy cross on the smoothed face. Yoshiara had two drums resting in his lap with a metal tin resting by his feet with a narrow stick protruding out of it. And in the middle of the bunch was Kenpachi Goddamn Zaraki himself, looking remarkably unamused and wielding two wooden orbs on handles. Uhhh...

"Lovely lady, won't you join me this fine evening?" Keigo had appeared from wherever he'd been skulking, grinning that infuriating grin of his and looking dashing in black pants, shoes and dress up shirt, the sleeves partly rolled up towards his elbows. He'd shaved.

"You tell me to meet you out here, sick Fuuka on me and then act like this was just a coincidence?" She gave him the stink eye, not really ready to admit that she was feeling just a little swept off her feet.

He shrugged, grin melting away as his eyes took her in. "Okay, suave's not your thing, I get that. But I can't feel too sorry for getting you out here when you look like...wow..."

Words seemed to fail him for a moment, and she felt a stirring of gleeful pride at rendering him speechless. Good grief, had Fuuka dosed her with something as well? She wasn't normally this _girly_. "I'd say you clean up pretty good too, but you only look a little less scruffy than usual. Points for trying though."

He scoffed, jerking his head as though to look away. He approached without another comment, and the Arrancar refused to back down or step back so he ended up a mere step away from her, eyes flitting between her's. As though that was a cue -and _oooohhh_ she just knew that it was- Tatsuki gave a lazy strum on her stings, followed by Quint plucking out a quick little chord that seemed both playful and melancholy. Tatsuki strummed again. Quint went through another, slightly different chord.

"Would you care to dance?" Keigo whispered, words only for her and hooooly shit this was a date. He had actually asked her out a fricking date. This guy was certifiably nuts, wasn't he? They'd been up and down the familiar path of banter and light flirtation, but she quite honestly hadn't expected him to grow balls the size of dumbtrucks and shatter all convention regarding their two races so casually. What was it about this new generation that managed to ignore all the previously held rules and regulations?

Oh, right, Kenpachi.

Quint picked up speed in his next chord and seemed to really be getting into this.

Raising an eyebrow, she couldn't help the smirk that played on the corner of her mouth. "Well, I suppose I could have pity on you and oblige your stupidity, just this once." Not caring one bit, she kicked her shoes off without breaking eye contact and put her hands onto his shoulders while his own gingerly took up residence on her waist. Cunning he may be, but experienced in the battlefield of seduction he clearly wasn't.

There was a longer, faster chord than the rest before a pause of a second or three before Yoshiara and Kenpachi chipped in. The healer started with a basic beat, nodding his head along with it until Kenpachi rolled his eyes and began shaking the dearlordtheyweremaracas. This was her life now. Quint and Tatsuki rejoined the number with fervor, keeping a low but rising tone. The song was starting to sound distantly familiar.

Right at the point where the guitarists picked up into the more spirited main section, Keigo led them off backwards towards the fire, their feet weaving in and out of each other as they managed to cobble together what little dance etiquette they knew and perform something halfway between a waltz and a samba, if you squinted and were concussed. But they soon didn't care how they looked; too wrapped up in matching the other in yet another competition of wills that seemed far more important than any other.

The unlikely musicians were keeping the beat steadily, wordlessly egging the duo on. How and where they'd learned this song was just another mystery to add to the bunch she had little hope of ever solving. Though she did finally recognize it.

"You got some of the most powerful souls in any world to play the Eagles for us to dance to?" She grinned wickedly up at him. He grinned right back.

"She held up the candle, and she showed me the way," he quietly sang along as he spun her a few times so the hem of her dress flared out like a flower blooming in extreme fast forward. He was grinning despite the very clear trepidation that was just under the surface, and she had to hand it to the lunatic that he had managed to wrangle up a half decent date. The least she could do was enjoy herself a little...

Slipping out from his hold, she continued a slow spin around the fire, bobbing up and down with the melody as it crooned on. Keigo clapped along, watching her move with a slightly awed expression, taking in the bend of a knee and the twist of an elbow as she flowed with a grace that had nothing to do with dancing. She went through several rotations before he stepped back in, hands sliding back into place eagerly.

"This might start to look really cheesy soon," she warned, grinning up at him with an impish look of delight. He hadn't seen her smile like that before.

"See if I care." He lifted their hands up and spun her twice before cupping the small of her back and her neck as he leaned forward, bringing her nearly horizontal to the ground. "Long ago, I promised myself I would never fail to act because of fear again. So here we are."

"What did I say about trying to be suave?" He straightened and swept her into another fast-footed shimmy around the fire. The band was in full swing now, and the soundtrack to their clumsy-yet-exhilarating exchange was at its liveliest. It should be stressed that Kenpachi was as deadpan as ever, but the others were starting to have fun with the whole stupid thing.

"We haven't had that spirit here since-"

"1969~!" Irha finished with a triumphant smirk. It'd been a few decades since she'd last heard the song, but it was coming back to here with startling clarity.

He smiled at her, really _smiled_. She suddenly felt like a deer in headlights, staring into his slightly taller face as she tried to read the typhoon of emotions that were massing behind his eyes, but she was having difficulty navigating her own inner storm. His body was hot against her cooler skin.

"You can check out anytime you want," he whispered, voice dropping to almost inaudible levels as he blithely skipped ahead in the song, "but you can't ever leave." His head was dipping lower, inching at an agonizing pace. She wanted to jeer at him, to throw an insult in his face, to do anything to break the spell that he'd woven her into, but her body traitorously rebelled and began to close the distance as well. Tatsuki eagerly leaned forward in her seat while Yoshiara blushed on their behalf.

They were so close, practically sharing breath (his was spicy from a couple fortifying drinks of sake he'd had beforehand and her's was fruity thanks to the flavored gloss), and it would be the easiest thing in the world to tilt her head forward an-

He unknowingly stepped on her dress and they were both thrown to the ground, too entangled in each others arms to avoid a hard and shocking collision with the dirt and suddenly flailing limbs.

"Keigo you FUCK! You headbutted my eye!"

Keigo merely whimpered, her knee still squashing his balls.

Kenpachi once again rolled his eyes. "How do I get roped into these things?"


End file.
